Well, It Was Really Catchy
by Manchester
Summary: Even wizards and witches should have known better, considering how magic can have its own rules and directives created long ago, by the greatest of them since Merlin: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: I'm sure _somebody_ used this idea before. Since there's no way for me to search every Harry Potter fanfiction story, I'm appealing to you all. Do you know of any other HP story that had the same concept that'll be shown in the upcoming chapters? In any event, here's my take on this.

* * *

Centuries earlier:

"We accept your condition."

Salazar had a rare expression appear on his sly face, that of surprise. Looking around at the others, as they all stood on the bare spot overlooking the lake, where they were about to set the foundations of the immense magical castle soon to be known by its rather peculiar name, the wizard from the fen saw his companions nodding in agreement with Godric. Narrowly eyeing his former friend, the mage said in a suspicious tone, "I was sure you wouldn't agree, and that you asked me here to tell me that."

Crossly glowering at Salazar, the wizard with a magnificent sword at his side gruffly answered, "I'm not happy about it at all, but we do need you, and Helga and Rowena both persuaded me your demand was extremely unlikely to ever happen."

"Indeed," spoke Rowena in her clear alto. The woman's beautiful face was calm as she went on, "The chances that the those exact specifications will be accomplished are virtually minuscule-"

Chuckling, Helga interrupted in her normal jolly voice, "What dear Rowena is trying to say, is that whether magical or Muggle, people are people, and there's no way nine-tenths of everyone will ever see eye to eye on this! You couldn't get that many people to agree the sun will come up tomorrow morning!"

A sardonic twist of Salazar's lips was his only reaction to Helga's statement. Noticing this, Godric cleared his throat, and asked a bit plaintively, hoping for at least few moments of their past friendship with his ex-comrade, "Salazar, _why_ are you doing this?"

"Oh, I have my reasons," shrugged the ancient and monkey-like mage, his long, thin beard falling nearly to the bottom of his robes. Looking at the bewildered man across from him, the devious wizard allowed himself the most infinitesimal twinkle to appear in his eye, as he muttered, "The merest of them is that it'll prick your blasted pomposity. Plus, I'm sure that eventually something quite amusing will come of this."

As Godric's face turned red and he started swelling up, about to bellow in rage at Salazar, both Rowena and Helga simultaneously snapped, "Enough, you two!"

Startled, the two men looked as one at the pair of irritated women. The wizards saw the witches were about to express their evident exasperation in the form of several seriously discomfiting hexes upon the men in the next few moments, unless they promptly changed their behavior for the better. A little chastened, both Godric and Salazar glanced at each other, and silently agreed, for once, to hold their tongues.

Seeing this, Helga and Rowena smirked at each other, and then the plump, redheaded woman said with a rare edge in her tone, "We're here to create the first magical school, so _now_ can we begin?" Her glare at the two wizards won reluctant nods from them, and with a satisfied expression upon her face, Helga moved to a specific position on the flat outcropping, standing in the north corner of an imaginary square on the ground.

Giving the wizards a cool look that showed she quite agreed with her fellow witch, Rowena walked to her south corner, and both Godric and Salazar stiffly strode over to their own positions in the east and west corners, respectively. Neither of these men were stupid enough at this moment to let appear on their faces actual pouts over being so ordered around by the women.

Still, now that they were all here, everyone begin to act as proper magic-wielders adept and accomplished in creating spells and enchantments on a scale not seen since Merlin himself. All four of these people at their positions now shut their eyes, composed themselves, and brought up their hands to clasp these together with the other mages on their sides. A few seconds later, the chant began, as Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin began to slowly weave together their magic, to create what had never been before in the world.

"_Hogwarts shall be thy name…"_


	2. Chapter 2

A long, long time later, the massive magical castle brooded over the Scottish lake. In its centuries of existence, it had known battles and sieges, victories and defeats, sorrows and joys, celebrations and memorials, as literally thousands of young wizards and witches had passed through its gates, to learn about and train with their magic as they became part of the wizarding world of Britain.

Over the generations, just about everything magically imaginable had occurred at Hogwarts. It was now truly rare for something new to happen in the castle, yet at this moment, an actual unique event was taking place.

In the Great Hall, Pansy Parkinson was doing something nobody in the castle had ever thought she was capable of performing. She was skipping.

Hopping from one foot to the other around the Slytherin table, the black-haired girl had her face in an ear-to-ear grin, and in her hand, the young woman's wand was dipping in time with the beat, as she led her entire House seated at the table in the chorus of a very insulting song:

_Weasley is our King,  
__Weasley is our King,  
__He always lets the Quaffle in  
__Weasley is our King._

Pansy twirled joyously in her dance, as her atypical mood only improved at seeing the reluctant grins and the mouths beginning to silently join in from the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff Houses. The glares from all members of Gryffindor House would have been the perfect topping for it all - except for what was to come.

At just the right moment, Pansy flicked her wand, letting loose the two minor charms set on it that would allow the song to resound throughout the entire castle, and also to subtly encourage every listener in the structure to join in. The last spell wasn't any kind of geas or other magical command; anybody hearing the song could consciously refuse to participate, but even if they'd known it was a spell, or if they would ordinarily have refrained over not wanting to hurt Ronald Weasley's feelings, the sheer sarcastic jauntiness of the music itself, with its own influencing power, would have swept up even usually dignified and serious individuals into taking part.

And so it came to pass, as startled students and instructors in every room of Hogwarts, no matter what they were doing - walking the corridors, reading, snogging together, sleeping, inside the bathrooms, whatever - now suddenly heard the catchy tune, and after a few moments of listening, they all began to hum, whistle, croon, intone, chant, and sing along.

Including every individual at the Gryffindor House dining table. A startled Harry, Hermione, Neville, and the others at their interrupted meal promptly felt their lips beginning to twitch, and even though most managed to think they had just been caught up in the mood and hastily toned it down, they had indeed joined in.

At the end of the Great Hall, the staff was staring in astonishment (and in the case of Severus Snape, with exceedingly rare amusement) at all of the students singing at a then-incandescent Ron, and reluctant smiles began to appear on a few of the instructor's faces, and then all of them, without thinking, they too began to follow suit. Only Dumbledore himself, with his eyes energetically twinkling, managed to detect the subtle magic, and the Supreme Mugwump quickly identified this and then satisfied himself that the minor spells would cause no harm to anyone. In the course of this, the aged wizard allowed himself to hum along with the tune for just a few moments.

That was all it took. By his shown acquiescence, the Headmaster of Hogwarts had now unknowingly initiated the never-before-realized enchantment reluctantly laid down by three of the four wizards and witches who had long ago recognized their task of creating a magical school could only be completed by paying the price demanded by the last of their number. Even if that man had never fully explained the why of his requirement, it didn't matter, as the centuries-old spell on Hogwarts Castle itself was now cast by the immense power lurking within the very stones of the building.

Over the endless years, virtually every magically-capable human in Britain had come to Hogwarts, and as they experienced their magic there, all had unwittingly allowed that place to absorb some of this conjured energy. The incredibly powerful protective wards on Hogwarts were only the tip of the iceberg as to what anyone, even Dumbledore, knew or thought that the castle could accomplish, under the right conditions.

Without the slightest triggering of any magical alarm, a quick flash of undetectable sorcerous energy burst from the castle in Scotland, to instantaneously pass over every square inch of Britain, locating in that land every single wizarding human currently alive who'd ever been to that building, no matter how long ago it had been, or how much magic was possessed by that visitor. All of them, along with any other person possessing the least bit of magic who'd never visited Hogwarts, were now affected by the spell sent via the building itself, which did just two things.

To their immense astonishment, every wizard and witch, of all ages, in Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, Gringotts, on the Knight Bus, and in all other magical and non-magical parts of Britain, now heard coming from the air a really sprightly tune, with the following chorus:

_Weasley is our King,  
__Weasley is our King,  
__He always lets the Quaffle in  
__Weasley is our King. _

Out of sheer shock, even if those listeners weren't already being affected by the other minor spell encouraging them to participate, every single member of the wizarding world joined in on the last line, mouthing the words, even for just a few syllables.

_Everyone. _Including in a dark cellar, a bald, red-eyed monster in a black robe, who had been taken totally by surprise.

It was enough. The nine-tenths requirement had been more than fulfilled.

Back in the Hogwarts Great Hall, where Ron Weasley, in the grip of a berserker rage, had lurched to his feet, about to launch himself towards the Slytherin table in single-handed combat with them all, he froze. As did every other person in that room, with the song abruptly ending in mid-word.

High up above, the entire ceiling of the Great Hall, which had always shown the outside skies, now flashed into pure white. An instant later, so did the walls, changing from their stone exterior also into whiteness, and then the same thing happened to the floor. Nobody in the room was able to move or do any possible spell-casting, as they all were held motionless by the sheer power of the magic flowing into the space that now resembled the inside of a cube with surfaces the color of milk.

From the youngest terrified first year pupil to an alarmed Dumbledore, everyone felt their bodies being shifted by the magic itself into two rows, as the tables and chairs of the Great Hall faded out of existence. Harry and Hermione found themselves side-by-side at the front of the row that consisted entirely of students. Neither could move their heads, only able to see each other out of the corner of their eyes and finding out both had identical panicked expressions.

On the right side of the students, the row of instructors was also immobile, with Dumbledore and McGonagall at the front of the teachers. The woman was showing worried concern on her face, while the Headmaster was outwardly calm. Inside his head was an entirely different story, as the leader of the Light desperately tried to use his link with Hogwarts Castle that had come with his appointment to that position many years before. The link was ordinarily part of how Dumbledore knew whatever was taking place inside the castle, even if he never acted upon this information or chose to use it for his own ends.

Right now, something had happened that had never occurred before. He was being…ignored.

Just as Dumbledore realized this, their surroundings changed. All whiteness around the people there faded out, changing into the normal muted colors of aged stone and other materials of another room in Hogwarts, one that not a single individual of them all had ever visited before. If the place they had earlier been occupying was called the Great Hall, where they were now should properly be termed the Greater Hall.

Twice the size of their previous room, in all respects of height, length, and width, majestic buttresses swept up the side walls to meet high above at the ceiling in magnificent stone arches. Great rectangular banners bearing strange symbols and sigils hung vertically on the walls between these supports. On the pure-black marble floor, outlines of the sun, the moon, and the stars were inlaid in gold and precious jewels, all of these leading the eyes of those there towards the end of the room, where someone was seated in his chair.

Below an immense rose window of the finest stained glass, on a massive throne of pure gold, the color of which matched the simple crown decorated with blazing-green emeralds that brought out the redness of the hair this circlet was perching upon, with his hands calmly resting upon the silver sword inlaid with rubies that laid across his upper thighs, a very thoughtful look was currently being bestowed upon his subjects by King Ronald the First.


	3. Chapter 3

All of those standing there in their rows of two by two now felt an overpowering impulse that none could deny, as everyone knelt down onto the floor, and bowed their heads to their new ruler. After a few moments of absolute silence, Ron's expression changed to faint puzzlement, as his head tilted in clear communication with something other, that quickly became sheer exasperation, as the young man sighed, and growled, "Oh, let them up, already!"

Instantly, all those kneeling felt their submission vanish and control of their bodies was promptly returned to them. As they shakily got to their feet and stared at the young wizard on the throne calmly looking back at them, mouths were opened to begin a babble of questions, exclamations, and other demands for information. All of this potential chatter was cut off by another's bellowed roar:

"WEASLEY! WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?"

Sweeping through the crowd, his black cloak frantically fluttering as if it somehow knew that drama decreed proper billowing at this exact moment, Professor Snape stalked right up to the throne, his pale face having two red blotches over his cheekbones and his greasy hair quivering as his entire body shook in absolute rage. Stopping right in front of a still-seated Ron, the man leaned forward to rant right into his student's face, "IF THIS IS SOME SORT OF PRANK, I'M TAKING EVERY SINGLE POINT FROM GRYFFINDOR FOR THE ENTIRE SCHOOL YEAR!"

"You need a peppermint toad," idly said Ron, casually lifting to his features his right hand and then using this to fan away the fetid air from Snape's bad breath.

Snape now looked like he would actually have a stroke, his eyes bulging as his mouth snapped shut, and his fists clenching as his body now froze in absolute disbelief. Actually, it wasn't just his own sheer incredulity at Ron's offhand comment that had paralyzed Snape, with another outside force then showing itself that was demonstrated by the careless wave of Ron's hand.

The immobile body of Professor Snape at once skidded backwards on the floor about ten feet, stopping at another flick of the redhead's hand. Ron coolly eyed his former Potions professor, as a musing look then appeared on the young man's face. "Blimey, my very first case of lese-majesty. Now, how would a proper monarch respond to that?"

After several seconds of evident thought, Ron snickered, the sound clearly evident throughout the majestic room as everyone else there watched in quiet shock. The king on this throne waved his hand again in another magical gesture, with the results promptly evident to all in the chamber.

Severus Snape stood there, still frozen, but his robes had suddenly transformed from their usual midnight black color into eye-searing, wide vertical stripes of purple and green all around his body, while the man's formerly pale face was now the pure white of applied clown make-up, accompanied by a little red rubber ball at the tip of his pointed nose and attached four-inch-long fake eyelashes that were a fluorescent pink.

The topper was Snape's hair, which had been washed, fluffed, blow-dried, and dyed the cheapest shade possible of tramp-blonde color, proudly upright in an eight-inch display of an absurd hairstyle that clearly showed off to everyone the dozen tiny scarlet ribbons attached throughout.

A full-length mirror had also appeared in front of the Potions Master, cheerfully provided by a considerate monarch anxious to let his detested teacher know exactly how he now looked to the entire world.

Now getting off his throne to stroll past Snape, Ron murmured as he passed the approaching-insanity instructor, "It'll be that way for the next six months, and there's nothing you can do to change it. Ta." Another wave of Ron's hand made Snape disappear into thin air, along with the mirror, as the advancing young man didn't even bother looking back behind himself at this.

Coming to a halt in front of a very quiet Dumbledore, whose eyes were twinkling at a record level, Ron politely murmured in greeting, "Headmaster."

An equally polite nod was offered to the young man with the crown, as Dumbledore decided to ask the question of the moment, "Mr. Weasley, what exactly did you do with Professor Snape?"

A very determined look now appeared on the face of the youngest wizard of the pair, as he said in a stern tone, "This is the only correction you'll ever receive. I am no longer a mister. I am a monarch. You will address me as 'Your Majesty" for the first time in a conversation, and 'sire' will do for the remainder of our talk. Is that clearly understood?"

Mouths dropped open throughout the entire crowd hearing and observing this in absolute awe, and they all looked at Dumbledore to see how he'd react. Most were disappointed at witnessing the Headmaster's perfect poker face. Inside the man's head was an entirely different story, as first the aged wizard again anxiously tried and failed to contact Hogwarts Castle. Then, while staring at the calmly waiting young man, Dumbledore anxiously thought over every single thing that had occurred within the last few minutes, and he immediately came to the only decision that could possibly be made.

Slowly leaning forward, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore gave a reluctant bow to the monarch awaiting this, and he then said in a remarkably steady voice, "Your Majesty, I would like to repeat my question. What has happened to Professor Snape?"

Without showing any signs of smugness over the Headmaster's action, Ron casually answered, "Depending how buoyant he is, I'd say that right now he'll be reaching the surface at the middle of the lake, after falling the twenty feet I sent him above it. Ooops!" After that startled sound, Ron looked off into the distance for a few moments, his face bemused, and then he shrugged and returned his attention to Dumbledore, confiding to this startled wizard, "I really had no idea the giant squid would see Snape's current appearance as some sort of a sexual display. Oh, well, let's hope the professor's a fast swimmer!"


	4. Chapter 4

There was dead quiet in the room for a few moments, and then sounds of snickering started appearing from a few brave students, growing to full-blown laughter and then howls of delight, all from more students and with even a few teachers joining in. Dumbledore just sighed, as he examined the young man before him also laughing at the top of his lungs.

Finally wiping away the tears of mirth from the corners of his eyes, the redheaded monarch nodded to the Headmaster, and as he turned away from the startled man, he called over his shoulder, "We'll talk later, Mr. Dumbledore. We have much to discuss." At those ominous words, the leader of the Order of the Phoenix stared worriedly after the youngest son of the Weasley family walking over to his best friends.

Both Harry and Hermione unconsciously shifted closer together and looked nervous as someone whom they clearly didn't know anymore stopped in front of them. Panicked, Harry opened his mouth, and stuttered, "I, uh, um, your-"

Leaning forward until he was nose-to-nose with Harry, the other young man with humor glittering deep in his eyes slowly said, "Ron. Ar, oh, en. _You_ can say it." The now-smiling teenager glanced at the stupefied girl standing next to the green-eyed youth, and chuckled, "So can you, Hermione. Though…maybe in your case, I should send forth a decree saying Hermione Granger must always add the words 'Oh Most Glorious and Magnificently Perfect Male' before my name."

"You idiotic, thickheaded- Eeep!" Hermione had unthinkingly sputtered out her response before suddenly realizing whom exactly she had been scolding, to abruptly clamp her mouth shut and turn brick-red in embarrassment by the delighted laughter of both of her friends. Yes, both Harry and Ron were simultaneously roaring in hilarity at her, until even the girl's mortification began to dissipate as her own lips twitched, and she summoned up her courage to fondly say to Ron, "You prat."

"Nobody knows that about me better than you, Hermione. Well, except him," as Ron beamed at his female friend, to then nod at a chuckling Harry. After that, Ron's face turned serious as he now held Harry's eye, telling him, "Mate, there's something important I have to do, and it involves you. But, I have to tell you, it's going to hurt. Really, really hurt. Do you trust me enough to let me do it?"

Staring at Ron's solemn expression, Harry contemplating this young man's final words for several moments, as the entire hall now hushed in expectation for the Boy-Who-Lived's decision. It seemingly took only an instant for Harry to make up his mind, but in reality the son of Lily and James Potter already had five years of being around Ronald Weasley, and knowing him in all his moods and behavior - every bit of the good and the bad - that lead to a surprisingly easy choice.

"I believe in you, Ron. Do it."

Giving Harry an encouraging nod of thanks, Ron leaned towards his nervous friend and then the redhead suddenly reached out to clap the palm of his right hand over Harry's forehead, right on the famous lightning-bolt scar. For an instant, Harry just looked bewildered as nothing seemed to happen, and then his face abruptly contorted in agony, as his entire body shuddered and began to go limp, about to fall onto the marble floor of the hall.

Ron's left hand darted out to grab Harry's upper right arm, holding him up, as the king still kept his other hand against his friend's forehead, while gritting, "Hermione, get his other arm! Keep him on his feet! I can't stop this once it's started, and if he gets loose, it might kill him!"

A horrified look appearing on her face, that young woman immediately dashed to Harry's side and she grabbed his left arm, putting this over her shoulder as she crowded up against Harry, her right arm wrapping around his waist, as she fought to keep him from collapsing onto his knees, with his entire weight leaning on Hermione. In the crowd, several alarmed people, including Neville and Fred and George Weasley, started to rush towards the trio, only to freeze in their tracks due to a snapped command from Dumbledore, with this wizard ordering in a savage tone that nobody in the castle had ever heard before: "_Stop!_"

The frozen crowd stared at the elderly man keenly gazing at the hand Ron was still pressing against Harry's forehead, even as that black-haired teenager continued to shudder and jerk, green eyes behind his glasses sightlessly glaring straight ahead in unfocused pain, his face paper white and beginning to stream with perspiration. Hermione was also still holding onto Harry, all while having the experience of seeing up close every bit of his torture, and she opened her mouth to scream at Ron for what he was doing to his friend, until the witch was unexpectedly struck dumb.

A grim Ron then began to slowly pull away his right hand from Harry's head, at the same time muttering under his breath, "Get out of there, you bugger! Piss off! He's had to put up with you his whole life, and it stops right now!"

An astonished Hermione, from only a few inches away, was now able to see in the increasing space between Ron's palm and the skin of Harry's forehead, adhering to both, a greenish blob of something that looked to be half-solid and half-vapor, as it stretched under Ron's determined tugging. Finally, with one last firm yank that produced an anguished shriek from Harry, the mysterious substance then came loose, with Ron staggering back at the sudden release and letting go of Harry. At that moment, Harry dropped to his knees at last, dragging down Hermione with him, with the witch wincing in momentary pain at that part of her legs slamming onto the hard floor. Nevertheless, she gasped, "Harry, are you all right?" as she tried to look into her friend's slack face lolling back, eyes tightly closed.

Instead of answering Hermione, the young wizard in her clutch gave a whole-body shiver, and then he finally brought himself back under control, bringing his head down and turning it towards the witch, as a wincing Harry finally opened his bleary eyes, and he opened his mouth to say something. Whatever this was, it was never heard, as instead Hermione promptly cried, "Harry! Your scar is gone!"

Bewildered, Harry stared at the astonished girl next to him looking at his upper head, and he clumsily lifted his right hand to rub his forehead. There, instead of the raised flesh where his famous scar had existed for nearly his whole life, he felt only smooth skin over hard bone. Dropping his hand, Harry and Hermione traded stunned glances, and then they looked elsewhere, to the place a few steps from them where a certain red-haired young man was standing, having recovered his balance, and now examining with absolute disgust what he now possessed.

In the right palm of Ronald Weasley, a sickly-green ball of some unknown substance the size of a Snitch floated an inch above his flesh, feebly pulsating. Harry swallowed hard, as he suddenly realized that ball was throbbing in time with his heartbeat, and then both Hogwarts students carefully got back up on their feet, still holding onto each other. With a reassuring nod, Harry now had Hermione let loose of him, as they stood together, with the teenage boy beginning to quickly regain his steadiness.

Blurting out her abrupt question, Hermione asked, "Headmaster, what _is_ that?" as she pointed at what was still floating above Ron's hand as this monarch regarded it with pure loathing.

His own face grave, Dumbledore also managed to study with utmost fascination this unwholesome thing. Not turning his gaze away from his scrutiny, the elderly wizard absently answered, "That is a horcrux, Miss Granger, one of the darkest of dark magics. A piece of someone's soul, split from the main essence of their being, and usually placed in an object or creature during a foolish attempt for personal immortality, since as long as that horcrux exists, the individual who allowed this to be done to their soul can never fully die."


	5. Chapter 5

For once, Harry was quicker than Hermione to comprehend something, as he suddenly demanded, "That's Voldemort's horcrux, isn't it?" Ignoring how nearly all of the silent crowd behind them witnessing this immediately flinched at hearing the Dark Lord's name, with increasing rage in his tone, Harry snarled at Dumbledore, "Did you know about this? And if you did, why didn't you _ever_ tell me?"

The headmaster finally looked at Harry, a sorrowful expression upon his worn features, as that man quietly answered, "Harry, I didn't truly know then, only suspected it until my investigations led me to the truth. Voldemort certainly never told anyone what he was doing, particularly when he was making more than one horcrux. Including one purely by accident, when he attempted to kill you as a baby, only to be struck down by your parent's protecting spell of love. This destroyed his body and created another horcrux on the spot from his soul, that became lodged in the nearest magical object in your former home. You, Harry."

The child of James and Lily Potter looked as if he was about to heave up the entire contents of his stomach at this news of his parents' murderer being part of him since babyhood. As Harry struggled to control himself, Dumbledore went on while carefully eyeing the younger man, "If what I suspected back then that happened to you was true, I knew I had to keep you protected while I studied how to remove or destroy your horcrux, and to search for any others. In any event, it was unlikely to be accomplished at once; rather, it might very well take years. That is the main reason why I placed you with the Dursleys, Harry."

Harry angrily snapped, "What do those relatives of mine have to do with whatever was in my head? They hate magic, wizards, and witches, and they took out their bad tempers on me all my life over that!"

Dumbledore sighed, as he glanced around the fascinated crowd listening intently, and the aged wizard reluctantly went on despite the lack of privacy over what needed to be said. "Unfortunately, that was exactly why I needed to place you with them. Despite your parents' wishes known to me that in the event of their deaths and your survival, you were to be kept entirely away from your aunt and her husband and that you were instead to be put in the care of various friends and others such as your godfather Sirius, the Longbottoms, or the Weasleys, I was unable to comply with this."

Harry stared with disbelief at a apologetic Dumbledore, before choking out, "I could have had a much happier life, but you thought better? Why the bloody hell didn't- What, you thought I'd be spoiled rotten due to all that Boy-Who-Lived shite? I found out years ago that you used that reason to stick me with those bastards!"

The worn lines on the headmaster's features only deepened at the end of Harry's rant, with Dumbledore steadily answering, "That was merely an excuse, Harry, to cover up the true reason. Simply put, right after the events of that night in Godric's Hollow, you could not safely be around magic."

The young wizard goggled like a fish at the other man, a gobsmacked expression shared by virtually everyone else in the room, as they all stared at the Leader of the Light. Only one person paid no attention to this, with Ron Weasley still intently examining what floated above his outstretched palm. Dumbledore himself also glanced at the greenish ball hovering over that teenager's hand, directing the crowd's attention there, as the aged wand-user asked a short question, "Do you recall Professor Quirrell, Harry?"

Frowning at this unexpected inquiry over that Hogwarts staff member he'd encountered during his first year at that magical school, Harry suspiciously eyed Dumbledore, and shortly answered, "Yes, he became possessed by-" Abruptly cutting himself off, Harry's face then went pale.

Really wishing he could tell the rest of this more discreetly, the headmaster finished Harry's statement, "-by Voldemort, yes." Ignoring the usual flinch by the others over that name, Dumbledore went on. "The Dark Lord's spirit managed to overcome that poor man's mind and it became stronger by feeding off his magic, until at last there was nothing of that teacher but a feeble remnant of his former personality. All done by a barely sentient wraith - while in your head was a distinct part of Tom Riddle's soul. Should that horcrux ever be allowed to remain in a magic-rich location, such as the wizarding world, it would have certainly absorbed these mystical energies, and grown more than strong enough to take over the mind of a toddler not even two years old, Harry."

For the first time, Hermione joined in the conversation, earnestly speaking as she stood besides Harry. "Well, the solution back then should have been obvious - put baby Harry in a non-magical environment, otherwise known as the rest of the Muggle world."

Harry shot a thankful glance over at his female friend who was frowning at the older wizard, and then he directed his own irate attention back to Dumbledore, heatedly agreeing, "Yeah, _any_ other Muggle household than the Dursleys - even an orphanage - would have been just fine!"

Dumbledore resignedly nodded, but he went on with a more serious tone in his voice. "That would have been possible - difficult, but possible - except that the horcrux would have still been in you, Harry. And one of the few things known for certain about those magical items is that their creator, given enough time and effort, can track them down wherever they are, since these objects are part of themselves. If you had indeed been placed in the Muggle world, Harry, sooner or later a reborn Voldemort or some of his Death Eaters would have found you, with what horrendous consequences that I leave to your imaginations."

Hermione and Harry both winced, knowing all too well the results of Voldemort and his forces' vicious attacks against Muggles. Though, the young woman's face now concentrated in thought, as she slowly said, "You also couldn't put him with Muggles anyway and use a spell such as a Fidelius to hide him and them, because-"

"Because any spell strong enough to shield the horcrux against being found risked becoming drained by the magic itself, Miss Granger, giving that piece of Voldemort's soul much more power."

Not paying any attention to the crowd listening to all this with bated breath, Harry burst out, "But you did put a spell around me and the Dursleys, right from the start! The Blood Wards, you said, to keep me protected all the time, from when I first got put there and all the next damned decade, before I came to Hogwarts!"

An unruffled Dumbledore mildly replied, "Harry, the Blood Wards have a single great advantage over such hiding spells as the Fidelius, in that their power does not derive from the spell itself, but rather the circumstances of the casting. These wards are, in fact, far weaker than a Fidelius, but much more subtle in their power while working, when the specific condition is met: that an actual blood relation would allow you to live in their home. The wards would shield all there, not just you, and so the horcrux would be extremely unlikely to be able to absorb this slight magic, or even if it did, without any dire consequences."

A soft, melancholy sigh was then uttered by the aged wizard, as he continued. "Nevertheless, I could not dare any additional magic to be cast around yourself, so I sent the least magically-capable guardians I could trust to keep watch upon you while you were growing up, Harry, with strict instructions to stay far away from you as much as possible. Your neighbor, Miss Figg, was the next thing to a squib, and no doubt you remember how she became distant from you, eventually."

Harry's face abruptly became black with rage, as he indeed remembered that event, along with everything else of his hellish childhood. Beginning to open his mouth to scream at Dumbledore, the wizard interrupted this, instead speaking to a simmering Harry in a quiet voice that still carried throughout the entire room.

"I myself could never again approach you or your home, Harry, lest my magic affect your horcrux. The only time I met with the Dursleys was when they reluctantly agreed to take you in, and while I did know of their strong dislike of the wizarding world, they never then showed any overt hatred towards myself or their nephew. In fact, their very abhorrence towards magic was an actual point in their favor, as they would never speak of magic or expose you to it, if they could possibly avoid it. So, I left you in their custody, and devoted my attention for the next decade on search for information concerning Voldemort, his horcruxes, and any possible way to remove or destroy what was inside your mind without harming you, Harry."

Glaring at the saddened wizard, Harry growled, "What about when I finally came to Hogwarts? Wasn't that risky, putting me inside one of the most powerful magical places in the wizarding world?"

Dumbledore carefully nodded, saying, "A risk, indeed, but from what information I received in my reports concerning you during your childhood, it appeared that there had been no magical consequences to you from the horcrux during your youth. Even your outbursts of accidental magic were normal, regardless of the reasons for them. So, when you did come to the school, I was finally able to observe you for the first time in a decade, and I found that there had truly been no great changes to that horcrux. It was still about the same level it had been when I last saw you, and while it constituted a clear danger to a toddler, an eleven-year-old wizard beginning to come into his magic was much more able to combat its influence."

"Influence?" choked out Harry. He disbelievingly continued, staring at Dumbledore, "I was affected by it, coming here?"

"Of course, Harry!" chided a fascinated Hermione. "You began your link with Voldemort when you were in Hogwarts, and it continued the longer you lived and studied here."

Dumbledore nodded, "Quite right, Miss Granger. Yet, Harry, your own character never became truly manipulated or controlled by the horcrux, a testimony to your inner strength. Still, to be on the safe side, it was necessary for you to return to the Dursleys and the Blood Wards, once more living in a less magical location between Hogwarts sessions." Glancing back at Hermione, the headmaster continued, "That, I'm afraid, is why I made sure you kept your magic usage as limited as possible away from here, and also directed your friends to refrain from contacting you lest you visit too often other magical places such as the Burrow and Diagon Alley, all which could have possibly allowed your horcrux more opportunities for absorbing magic."

"Wasn't that just because it was too dangerous for me?" asked Harry a bit plaintively, both shocked and still resenting that there had seemingly been an actual reason for his lonely childhood with its torments and misery. His mood wasn't improved by Dumbledore's slightly exasperated cleared throat, along with the following statement.

"Not merely because of that, Harry! However, it must be kept in mind that whatever flaws possessed by Voldemort and his followers, including their disdain for the Muggle world, they are not all stupid. There are Death Eaters who were here in the past when Lily Evans attended this school, and it is quite possible they overheard your mother talk to her new friends in Gryffindor House about her home and family, mentioning that she had a Muggle sister. It is unreasonable to believe that none of those wrongdoers remembered this and still failed to conduct a search for Petunia Evans in the faint hope of finding out that a young child had been placed with her after the deaths of her brother-in-law and his wife. No, the Blood Wards still made it impossible for them to track you down, either by magical or Muggle means."

In an unconscious habit, Harry rubbed at his now-vanished lightning scar, with this action causing him to then point out, "But I still occasionally felt and sensed what Voldemort was doing through this, even at Privet Drive! How'd that get through the wards?"

"Because _you _and your horcrux were behind them, Harry," dryly replied Dumbledore. "The wards did keep Voldemort from finding out your location, but his horcrux still maintained a link to the Dark Lord even past that spell, as long as he didn't try to search for you. Oddly enough, I believe that our foe was quite content to know you still existed, even if hidden, and he could then devote his attention to other pursuits."


	6. Chapter 6

"In the main, a fair enough analysis, Dumbledore," unexpectedly came from someone else there that the trio had forgotten. Three heads, consisting of Harry, Hermione, and the headmaster, snapped around, to stare at Ronald Weasley gazing back at them all, with most of that newly-crowned king's attention coldly directed at the elderly wizard. As he absently dropped his right arm, leaving the horcrux he'd been examining throughout the others' conversation bobbing in mid-air, Ron grimly added, "However, as per your recently-developed habit during the last couple of decades, you've failed to thoroughly consider the consequences of your actions."

The sound of indrawn breaths from the entire crowd of Hogwarts students and staff quietly murmured throughout the Greater Hall at this incredible slight directed at their headmaster. Dumbledore himself allowed a polite look of inquiry to pass over his grandfatherly features, as he cautiously started to ask, "May I know what-"

"No, you may _not_," Ron snapped, as he irritably waved his hand, just before the silver sword that had been left behind on the armrests of his throne a few moments before now materialized in that young man's solid grip. There was a fierce look on the king's face as he continued, "There's been enough talk. Now, it's time for action!" In the very next moment, before anyone else there could react, Ron swung his sword in a flash of bright steel and red streaks from the rubies inlaid upon this weapon, right through the horcrux floating in the air.

Their eyes drawn to this, the entire crowd watched with horrified fascination as the cleaved greenish blob popped out of existence like a soap bubble, but with something next happening that caused everyone there but one to straightaway recoil, taking an aghast step back. Where the horcrux had been, a small cloud of black smoke now hung in the air, and a stabbing wail of absolute agony pierced the air, causing most of the appalled onlookers to clap their hands over their ears to block out this terrifying noise. A few moments later, when silence again returned to the throne room, the crowd cautiously took away their hands from the sides of their heads, and watched with downright relief at seeing the black cloud dissipate into nothingness.

Unlike the others, Ron had steadily stood there, watching with cold satisfaction the destruction of the horcrux and a fraction of Voldemort's soul. Nodding to himself, the king then frowned with concentration, muttering to himself all the while, "Right then, Harry got rid of the diary, so that leaves the other five…"

"_Five?_" gasped most of the listening crowd, including his two closest friends and the headmaster.

"Yep, and I found out from that piece of shite stuck in Harry's head where the rest of them are," absently replied Ron to nobody in particular, as that preoccupied young man then gestured with his sword to five different points in the air beyond him of the Greater Hall. With a final grand sweep of his weapon witnessed by the stunned crowd, this act produced the abrupt appearance from thin air that specific number of objects. From left to right, they were a small ring, a golden drinking cup, a locket, a jeweled headband, and one final items that caused the entire crowd to hurriedly back up, as they stared in shock at the enormous serpent hissing at them all in useless fury as it was held motionless in mid-air by the magic of King Ronald the First.

Momentarily ignoring the angry snake, Ron instead stepped in front of the small ring fixed at head height, drawing back his sword, to then halt due to a truly frantic bellow from the very last person this might be expected from, as Headmaster Dumbledore now despairingly shouted, "STOP, MR. WEASLEY!"

Both that wizard's hopelessness and his panic-stricken appeal might have had something to do with the shining bands of pure light that had a moment before also appeared to wrap vertically around the body of the elderly man, firmly restraining him from moving and using any kind of magic. The only thing that Dumbledore could think of was to try to persuade the young king against performing from what that monarch was clearly planning to accomplish. Almost gabbling his words in his desperate plea, the headmaster said hurriedly, "You don't know what you're really doing!"

Still holding his sword ready, Ron said in his own calm tone, glancing over his shoulder at the restrained wizard and his stunned friends at that man's side, "Oh, yes, I do. I know what this ring truly is, and Hogwarts agrees with me that the dead should be left in peace! If they need to contact us, it'll be up to them to make that decision, not the living that will one day join them anyway! Now, be quiet!" At those last curt command, another glowing band suddenly appeared around Dumbledore's lower face, covering his mouth and preventing him from speaking another word, as the wizard's wide eyes stared in disbelief at what next happened.

A single firm swordstroke hewed the ring in two, causing once more the puff of black smoke and the shriek of a soul's shard dispersing into its final end. While that was still going on, Ron stepped to the right, and continued this action several more times, using Godric Gryffindor's personal sword with its own immense magic that had no problem whatsoever in destroying the horcruxes, one after the other. After the last gory chop that removed Nagini's head with a single blow, Ron took a step back, paying no attention to the now-familiar results, to instead flick the swordblade away from his body, producing a spray of reptile blood onto the marbled floor, where the droplets of bodily fluid then promptly sank out of sight into the polished stones, as the castle neatly tidied up after her new master.

Turning to the dazed crowd, Ron then casually waved his sword at them, which caused the entire throng to simultaneously flinch, an action that continued during the sudden flash of light and their abrupt transportation back to the Great Hall, where the lunches of the students and faculty remained mainly untouched on the house tables by the events which had started it all just a few minutes earlier. Gaping at the red-haired young man in his crown, all there now saw and heard him look around to find several specific people, to then call out, "Ginny, Fred, George, I'll be sending you home. Mum and Dad and the rest of them will all be there so you can tell them what's happened. I'll be coming when I can, but I'm afraid you're just going to have Mum yell at you for a while, guys."

With a faint grin on his face as he wryly shrugged at his alarmed siblings, an additional gesture of Ron's sword caused this trio to apparate out of the school in another flash of light. King Ronald's expression now changed into sternness, as he looked around the dining hall, saying in a firm tone, "Nobody else will be leaving Hogwarts for a while, and there will be _no_ chance of any messages being sent to anybody, for any reason."

A very cold eye was then sent towards the Slytherin group, with someone there possessing a slicked-back blond coiffure hastily ducked behind a great lump of suet known as either Crabbe or Goyle. "If you want to try anyway, go ahead. Just have a bucket of water ready at hand, unless you really like having your hair set on fire," finished off Ron in his gruff growl. The king's face changed into a wicked smirk at hearing Hermione's immediate yelp over this.

"Ron Weasley! What are you _doing_?"

Glancing over at where this girl, along with Harry, was standing there gazing at him in utter disbelief, Ron grinned at them both, with his next words being much more serious than the showing of his evident high spirits.

"I'm going to finish the job." After that, before anyone could react, King Ronald the First vanished into thin air.

As the other people in the room immediately started chattering to each other over the recent events, Harry and Hermione stared at each other in wild surmise, and Headmaster Dumbledore, released from his magical bonds a moment ago, now staggered over to the nearest table bench, dropped onto the seat, and hopelessly put the palms of his hands over his eyes, while also giving a truly despairing groan that brought Professor McGonagall over to him in a hurry. A worried assistant headmistress studied her leader for a moment before concernedly asking, "Albus, what's wrong?"

Dumbledore dropped his hands from his face, and revealing a very forlorn expression on his features, he sadly replied to Minerva, "That young man is going to confront Voldemort."

* * *

A few moments earlier, Ginny, Fred, and George Weasley had appeared inside their home known as the Burrow, at the main living room on one side of this space. Standing on the other side were the rest of the family: Arthur and Molly Weasley, the parents of all there, including Percy, Bill, and Charlie. All of these five people had clearly been busy at their work just a second ago, with Molly gripping a dishrag, Arthur and Percy in their office robes and the younger man holding a stack of papers, Bill with his wand out, and Charlie's hair and clothes tousled as if he'd interrupted in the middle of caring for a dragon.

Every one of the quintet was also fixedly staring across the room at the younger members of the red-haired family, their gazes intent enough so that Ginny also quickly checked out her twin brothers at her side, with that girl's mouth promptly dropping open in shock, until she then started shrieking with laughter at the top of her lungs.

Thoughtfully taking out his pacifier, Fred Weasley cleared his throat, causing the edges of his baby bonnet outlining his face to quiver, as he glumly stated, "Brother mine…"

Sucking on his own pacifier, George Weasley was looking down at his nearly-naked body, covered solely with a scrap of a diaper that barely concealed his private parts, his chin brushing against that man's bib with an animated design of an infant dragon continually blowing a flash of fire through its nostrils, until that twin now lifted his head while resignedly pulling out his ring-shaped sucker to answer his brother, both presently dressed exactly like each other. "Yes, Forge?"

"Perhaps it was a mistake to always use ickle Ronniekins to test our newest wheezes on him when we were all younger, Gred."

"Now that this fine young man has a very sharp sword and he's become the absolute monarch of us all, there is the faintest possibility that you're totally right, brother mine."


	7. Chapter 7

"Avada Kedavra! _Avada Kedavra!_ AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Every time that phrase had been loudly hissed in the noisome cellar, at increasingly-desperate levels of emphasis and volume, sickly green light illuminated the entire area, to at last produce some kind of response, albeit not exactly what was expected.

"For someone who was a Head Boy at Hogwarts back in the 'forties, you seem to be a pretty slow learner. But then, from personal experience with my prat of a brother, intelligence doesn't appear to be the main qualification for getting picked as a house's student leader. More like slavishly following every single school rule in existence while sucking up to the castle staff."

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

As the deadly killing curse again shot towards the young man wearing a crown and standing there while rolling his eyes in total exasperation, this attack accomplished precisely nothing, leaving him in the pink of health. The misshapen being in his black robe disbelievingly backed up against the rear cellar wall, and he continued to point his wand at someone who just…wouldn't…die!

What in Merlin's name had happened to that friend of his bitterest enemy? From all accounts, including that of Lucius' spawn, Ronald Weasley was nothing more than a loutish Gryffindor, a walking appetite from that blood traitor family, whose likely future in the current war between Lord Voldemort's forces and the wizarding world was for that foolish boy to quickly become target practice for one of his Death Eaters!

Instead, an appalled Dark Lord allowed his attention to become momentarily diverted from the glowering teenager in front of him, to instead stare with absolute incredulity at the results of the carnage of a few minutes earlier occupying the far end of the cellar, right at the point where this Weasley child had seemingly apparated into the midst of the evil wizard's followers, all whom had been hurriedly summoned to the cellar deep below the Malfoy family home when his horcruxes had been destroyed.

Voldemort had felt every agonizing second of the annihilation of the remnants of his soul, starting with the accidental horcrux inside that Potter brat, and then commencing with the rest of those dark magic objects, even his familiar known as Nagini, when that snake had been mysteriously whisked right out of his strongest wards laid upon the cellar. The Dark Lord had just started to recover during the arrival of the first of his faithful supporters, only to have that red-haired idiot materialize inside his hiding place along with the main group!

Flicking back his scarlet eyes from the heap of bodies that only a few moments ago had been his servants, each branded with their Dark Mark, to once more warily gaze at the young man coolly examining the other, Voldemort inwardly raged at how quickly and easily it had been for his unwanted visitor.

The very first slash of Godric Gryffindor's sword (that weapon inlaid with silver recognized at once by the Dark Lord) had entirely removed Fenrir Greyback's head from that werewolf's shoulders, with the blade continuing on in its course to slice through Bellatrix Lestrange's throat. As that madwoman had dropped her wand to futilely attempt staunching the massive wound with her fingers and then fell onto the cellar floor to bleed out there, Ronald Weasley hadn't even bothered to glance downwards at the dying Black sister, with that young man's crown resting upon his cranium not even shifting slightly during the swordsman's next swift attacks against the rest of his enemies.

In the total silence of the corpse-strewn cellar currently occupied by only two living beings there, Voldemort bitterly reflected to himself that a good portion of his now-deceased followers had managed to do nothing but get killed by their own side! During the sheer confusion of the abrupt close-quarter battle, lethal curses had flown freely throughout the entire room, hastily cast by those Death Eaters led by Lucius Malfoy, who'd managed to pull out their wands and let loose their most dangerous magics, and in many cases missing and wiping out their comrades by and behind Weasley at the same time he slaughtered the wand-waving purebloods facing him who'd just helped that fighter defeat everyone!

The mind-boggling fact was that _nothing_ at all had worked to stop that sword-wielding maniac, not even when he'd been directly hit by Lord Voldemort's most powerful Avada Kedavras-

"Riddle, didn't you ever wonder just _why_ you were the first one to use the Killing Curse since the Middle Ages?"

His blood pressure promptly soaring at being called that detested name, the bald monster in the cellar immediately roared directly at the young man standing before him, and casually holding the spotless sword ready in his right hand, "DON'T CALL ME THAT! I am Lord Voldemort!"

A disgusted look abruptly appeared on Ron's face, as he jeered back, "Yeah, yeah, the anagram from 'Tom Marvolo Riddle.' Hey, did you ever consider that maybe there were a few spelling mistakes on the birth certificate, and your name is really Tom _Farvalo_ Riddle? Bet you'd have felt really silly calling yourself Lord Voldefart."

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

"We're back to this again, aren't we?" sighed Ron Weasley, as again the emerald jet of pure magic showing the progress of the Killing Curse washed over his body and once more left him totally unharmed. "Look, did you just pick it up and start using that curse because it's your favorite color?"

Haughtily glaring with the red eyes set deeply in his chalk-white, skull-like face, Voldemort growled at his taunting foe, "I became the first to use it in centuries, to proclaim to all my enemies that there is no curse I will hesitate to use! Let all those who fear me cower in terror at my power!"

Sadly shaking his head, Ron then commented, a definite note of pity now in his voice, "There's actually a good reason why us wizards stopped using the Avada Kedavra so long ago, and it wasn't because that curse is so terrible, you bloody pillock! No, we just totally forgot about it, until you found that falling-to-pieces scroll in the Hogwarts library, managed to read it, and then brought the curse back! That's because before we separated from the Muggles, it was so _easy_ to counter it, idiot!"

The young monarch scowled at the taken-aback Dark Lord standing there in his black robe and cautiously lowering his wand, to irately continue before his astonished listener could react. "All that was needed was for somebody long ago to make a few more copies of the counter-spell, so that at least one of them would have survived, and kept people alive later on! But no, you just had the luck to find only the curse itself. Well, guess what? I'm going to make sure that everyone in the wizarding world knows how to neutralize it, and you can be the very first to hear it from me: just prick your skin and collect a single drop of your blood, put a variant of the Immobulus charm on that little blob to freeze it in time, and then add a sticking charm to keep the drop somewhere on your body or your clothes. It doesn't matter where, since if the Killing Curse is ever cast at you, it'll hit this blood first. Because that drop of blood still has a fraction of your life in it, once the curse destroys this piece of existence, the spell will have finished, and you'll otherwise be perfectly fine!"

Ron then smirked at a stunned Voldemort, sarcastically informing him, "Oh, you can yell 'Avada Kedavra' as many times as you like, but there's nothing to stop anyone from doing the counter-spell as many times as _they_ like! Nope, Riddle, nobody is ever going to cast your big, bad spell again; instead, if people even bother to remember you, they'll just laugh at somebody who totally failed to kill the man who's going to execute you, right here and now!" The young man with the crown now had his features set in a determined expression, while raising his sword to point it at Voldemort's ugly face.

As the Dark Lord shrank away, the back of his robe pressing against the cellar wall, this evil wizard frantically attempting to apparate away using his magic, and when that didn't work, his right hand with its extra-long fingers scrabbled against the charm pinned at the neckline of his robe. The emergency portkey also failed to operate, leaving Voldemort still in the cellar and staring with horror at Ron Weasley stepping nearer. Seeing the desperate look on his enemy's face, the young man snorted in disgust, saying, "What, you think I didn't even make sure nobody could escape from here? I might be a Griff, but we're not totally stupid-"

"STOP!"

Lord Voldemort had barked out that impulsive interruption of his approaching executioner, having managed to come up with a last-minute plan. As a wary Ron halted, his eyebrows raising in puzzlement but still keeping his sword ready, the Dark Lord hissed into the young man's face, "You cannot kill me, Weasley."

"Execute, not kill," absently corrected Ron, getting ready to decapitate another and much more uglier snake on two legs. "Why? Is today your birthday, and do you really expect your present for being such a good boy to be your survival?"

Voldemort actually managed to draw himself up in resentful arrogance, before sneering back at his opponent taunting him. "I am protected against you personally by magic itself, due to a…prophecy."

"Oh, you mean Trelawney's prophecy to Dumbledore at the Hog's Head Inn, that Snape only managed to hear part of before running off like a good little Death Eater to find his master? If you really want to know the complete version, I'd be quite glad to tell you."

Ron Weasley's casual comment almost ended things right then and there, since Voldemort nearly died from sheer shock at that exact moment over hearing this. Gaping at the snickering monarch, the being that had once been Tom Riddle helplessly gurgled, which made his enemy actually start laughing, until Ron finally got himself under control, to then sonorously recite:

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives..."

When he'd finished, a more solemn Ron now watched Voldemort's horrible face scowl in concentration as that evil wizard quickly worked out the meaning of the prophecy. Finally, the Dark Lord stared at the young man still holding his sword ready, and Voldemort's expression was one of actual triumph, as he hissed, "So, it does not matter whatever you might attempt, since by the prediction, only Potter himself can kill me. What do you have to say to that, you…_boy_?" as the wizard responsible for the deaths of hundreds of men, women, and children derisively spat out that last word toward Ron's direction.

Tilting his crowned head in evident thought for a few moments, Ron then steadily eyed before him the monster in his black robe, and then the red-haired teenager calmly spoke.

"Well, here's a curious thing. A prophecy's a serious statement, but there are other announcements made by someone else that can actually supersede that divination. For example, even though it's never happened before, there's always the possibility that an actual royal proclamation can prevail over a prophecy. We might as well as test that, and there's no time like the present, so here goes…"

Taking a deep breath while at the same time getting his sword in the proper position, all while being watched by a suddenly terrified Dark Lord presently unable to move at all in his overpowering fear, Ron Weasley now stated in a clear, confident voice, "I, King Ronald the First, regarding the prophecy concerning Harry James Potter and Tom Marvolo Riddle, known as Lord Voldemort, do declare-"

Without the slightest warning, the sword of Godric Gryffindor once again dispensed justice, flashing in a blurred sweep that easily lopped off Voldemort's head, with the very last moments of that dying evil creature having him still listening to the final words of the newly-created monarch of the wizarding world:

"Bugger that."


	8. Chapter 8

Holding out the small clay bottle at his full arm's length, Severus Snape delicately tilted the container over the bubbling surface of the cauldron contents. Sweat breaking out upon his pale forehead, the Potions Master held his breath to make sure that nothing would go wrong. After several agonizing moments, a vile purple liquid sullenly oozed into existence from where it had been lurking inside the jug, appearing to hesitate at the very lip of the bottle. Using the greatest of care, Snape coaxed out a single drop of this extremely dangerous substance, which then reluctantly let go of the bottle to fall directly into the seething liquid of his latest experiment. Right away, the Hogwarts professor gingerly stepped away from the cauldron, and carried his hazardous burden over to the nearest table, where he carefully replaced the lid to the clay bottle, and then he gently set this object upon its own reinforced shelf in a small cabinet nearby that had been braced to stay absolutely steady throughout any kind of outside vibration, up to and including a strong earthquake.

Breathing for the first time in a minute, Snape then hurried back to the cauldron, where he cast a sharp eye upon the surface of the churning liquid in the large metal pot heated to a glowing redness at the bottom of this vessel. The boiling fluid had now turned into a dull black color, an evil tint that threateningly suggested if it was ever applied to the human body, it was now more than capable of stripping a man's flesh from his bones.

Excellent. After all, nothing else in the last week had worked to remove that…that…_Weasley's_ spell that had turned himself into something so ridiculous!

Snape glumly looked down at his brilliant purple and green robes, which had cheerfully maintained their preposterous hues during all of his frantic changes over the past few days into every other item of clothing he possessed. Nothing he could think of while using his wand aimed at his attire could change these back to their normal, soothing, midnight-black shades. And as for the rest of it - the absurd alterations to his own physical self - well, after the first dozen failed attempts, Snape had blasted into glass flinders every mirror in his chambers deep in the Slytherin dungeons.

Glowering at the cauldron and its bubbling contents, Snape resignedly shrugged at the imminent perils of applying that horrible substance in the vessel to himself. There was absolutely no choice. He _had_ to do something to change his appearance before beginning his next actions, that would include his hurried departure from Hogwarts. So, Snape figured he might as well try crafting a truly complex shapeshifting concoction that only the most skilled Potions Masters dared attempt, since previous events in his life had never before been so desperate as to cause the creation of this supremely unsafe substance. Now, however, if using that potion did indeed prove to be fatal… Well, whatever happened, if Snape didn't make his escape from the British wizarding world as fast as possible, he was going to be a dead Death Eater very soon, anyway.

After all, that so-called King Ronald the First had recently shown a positive zeal in massacring these masked followers of Lord Voldemort. Without actually meaning to, Snape found himself walking over to one of the other cluttered tables in his workroom, where the remnants of his meals intermixed with food-stained copies of the Daily Prophet, both delivered in the last few days by the Hogwarts house elves, the only visitors the professor had permitted lately to his chambers. Brooding like a dyspeptic vulture over one specific edition laid out upon the table, Snape eyed the moving photograph there, as a crowd of gawking wizards and witches in their robes swarmed around the front of Gringotts, the Goblin Bank. All of these magically-endowed spectators were gazing with horrified fascination at the line of spikes recently installed onto the upper face of the imposing building, with nearly all of these spikes currently impaling the decapitated heads of Voldemort and about a dozen of his most important lieutenants.

Snape's ordinary sneering expression twisted into an actual thin smile of sheer black humor at one of the full-sized photographs from another, later Daily Prophet also on the workroom table, which identified each and every one of these ghastly trophies. In this case, Lucius Malfoy. However, it seemed that when that aristocrat had his severed cranium rammed onto its spike by whatever gleeful goblin had done this, the force of that act had caused the elder Malfoy's eyes to bulge outwards and also cross, so that silver-haired bigot was presently appearing to closely examine the large fly crawling upon the tip of his nose.

Given their long association with each other, Snape's brief flicker of icy amusement over that pureblood racist's violent death and resulting exhibition upon the walls of Gringotts (to a gaping rabble that haughty wizard would have surely considered his total inferiors) might have caused anyone who'd known both of these wand-users to lift a mildly surprised eyebrow. However, Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape might have been Death Eaters, but this didn't make them friends to each other, or in fact, with anyone else of their vicious gathering. Those two wizards had efficiently worked together over the years to advance their Dark Lord's plans; on the other hand, both had their own reasons for doing so. Considering their usual cold contempt for virtually everyone in their vicinity, in addition to the fact that the habitual pursuits of most of Voldemort's followers consisted of various attempts to ingratiate themselves with their master, trying to avoid being Crucio'd when this didn't work, and plotting against others of their group; this resulted in the fact that at this point after Riddle's fall and the near-total eradication of his minions, Snape's opinion about all of this was truly succinct: _Better them than I._

What was currently making the Potions Master really nervous was the possibility that he might be next, something which was presently approaching in Snape's mind absolute certainty, due to a very unsettling oddity about that gruesome picture in the Daily Prophet. It showed across the upper level of Gringotts the line of sharp spikes, each occupied by an executed criminal, save for one of these short, pointed metal poles. In that magical photograph, Snape couldn't help but notice that there was a single unused spike, right next to a deceased Lucius Malfoy.

True, it wasn't like there was a small sign dangling from that unoccupied piece of metal having 'Reserved For Severus Snape' written upon the front of this placard that had made the Head of Slytherin House (for now) hastily plan his urgent leave-taking of the wizarding world. Still, anybody this side of Sybil Trelawney could see the point of making themselves scarce, which had led to today's creation of that extremely hazardous shapechanging potion now nearly finished and ready for what was hopefully non-fatal consumption in the next few minutes. Standing there in his clown manifestation with the white makeup, silly hair, and ridiculous robes, Snape fiercely glared into the distance as that man impatiently waited, with the accompanying sullen hope that for a little bit longer, the jumped-up Weasley brat would be kept busy elsewhere.

Pacing along the messy table where the discarded wizarding newspapers from the last week had been scattered, various gigantic headlines caught Snape's disdainful attention, as these special editions excitedly gave their subscribers the amazing news about King Ronald's advent and his subsequent destruction of Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters, the dissolving and restructuring of the Wizengamot, and the transformation of the Ministry of Magic into the _Royal_ Ministry of Magic, with that latter act including the sacking of former Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge, to be speedily followed by that man's arrest for numerous charges of malfeasance and misconduct, along with various members of that politician's staff and subordinates also taken into custody by Aurors.

Snape contemptuously wondered just how many of those underlings would defend themselves using the Imperius Curse excuse, or if they would simply claim their pureblood rights. Both, probably, since those bureaucratic idiots were unlikely to admit to their total stupidity quite common to employees at the Ministry of Magic, whose usual qualifications for their positions was being from the right wizarding family, rather than actually being good at their jobs and faithfully working to efficiently serve the citizenry.

The new red-haired monarch currently in power seemed to not be overly fond of anyone in public office trying to dodge their responsibilities and duties, judging from another one of the Daily Prophet front-page article photographs, which once more produced a reluctant twitch of actual humor from Snape's lips. Billowing in the newspaper image, the pure-black clouds of the freak cloudburst called up by King Ronald ominously hung in the sky above the Ministry of Magic structure, until the abrupt occurrence of the deluge of icy rain mixed with enormous and jagged hailstones then drove away the entire protesting crowd of sacked pureblood wizards and witches that had previously been trying to get back inside the building after being magically ejected from their comfortable offices into what soon turned out to be a storm zone.

It seemed like Weasley, incredible as it might seem, was actually buckling down at his new occupation. Which was just fine with Snape, believe it or not. As long as that dunderhead was kept busy, this meant the friend of that damned Potter spawn was not about to get around to one last loose end here at Hogwarts-

_Wheet._


	9. Chapter 9

At the unexpected sound coming from directly behind him, Snape momentarily froze, and then he quickly reached for his wand.

_Wheet._

As that strange sound repeated itself, the Potions Master was then struck by an unspoken Petrificus Totalus hex that totally immobilized his entire body.

_Wheet._

At another silent magical command, a stock-still Snape, futilely attempting to regain control of himself, was turned around in a half-circle by invisible hands, his boots helplessly skidding along the floor of his workshop.

_Wheet._

At the far end of the room, nodding in deadpan greeting to Severus Snape, King Ronald the First sat in the chair next to the rectangular stone table where concoctions were created that could possibly eat through the surface of any wood or metal furniture if carelessly handled. The boy wearing a golden crown then made another smooth vertical downwards stroke with his silver-inlaid sword held perpendicular against the upper edge of the stone table, causing the metal blade of this weapon to become a fraction more sharper as it was honed against the stone, producing a final _Wheet_ sound, before the sword was now lifted to steadily point at the bubbling cauldron.

In a serious tone, the young monarch informed Snape, "Congratulations. You really _are_ good at potions, since you'd have survived drinking that, but my spell still wouldn't have been affected. I said you'd look like that for six months, and you will, whether here or anywhere else." Ron now shifted his sword to rest point-first down on the floor at his side, the palm of his right hand grasping the top of the hilt, as his majesty added in a rather menacing tone, "Alive or dead."

After those last ominous words, the magical paralysis affecting Snape vanished, without Ron seemingly the cause of this. The older man standing in his colorful robes swayed on his feet, white face remarkably blank, as years of keeping his emotions under control when necessary as Dumbledore's spy warred with that wizard's incandescent rage at the taunting boy.

For long moments, silence stretched out in the room, with the king interestedly watching his former schoolteacher struggling with his fury. Finally, Snape wrathfully choked out, "Get it over with, Weasley! The best thing about the end of my life is that I won't have to be around you or that accursed Potter ever again!"

Ron reacted to this angry statement by thoughtfully tilting his head, to next calmly ask of the other, "Are you _that_ impatient to die, Snape?"

A full-blown sneer, one of Snape's finest, was now bestowed upon the young man in his chair, along with the haughty comment, "I'm not in the mood to bask in the presence of your company! And kindly refer to me as Professor Snape henceforth! Whatever else I've done in my life, I honestly earned that title!"

"Yes, you're one of the best Potions Master Hogwarts ever had," Ron admitted to a suddenly-startled Snape at that compliment, whose shocked expression quickly changed to sheer ire as an also-annoyed monarch then snapped, "Except in all that time, you've also been one of the very worst teachers ever to work here!"

Totally forgetting about his impending execution, Snape roared back, "How dare you call me that, you dunderhead! I've done my best with the likes of you and your fellow idiotic friends-"

"You really think doing your best was to make us so miserable in your classes? Well, guess what, I've got clear proof of the consequences of that! For the last dozen years or so, Hogwarts records show that whatever else kinds of jobs most of the graduating students took, potions wasn't one of them! All because of you, when you made every house but yours so fed-up with your teaching, they didn't even want to think about ever again going near a cauldron! Not to mention that because only Slytherins got good marks from you, no matter how they actually did in your classes, when those snakes tried getting into the potions profession because of job openings there went begging, they usually made such a total disaster of it that my kingdom's potions reputation is an absolute laughingstock!"

Ron's rant had been so intense that it had shut even Snape up, with that indignantly-listening man simmering in silence until the last outburst from the king made the mouth of the other person there fall open in shock. Ron glared at this reaction from Snape, grumbling at him, "Yes, that's a fact! Nobody will buy potions from us; in fact, we have to buy them from the other wizarding enclaves in Europe and elsewhere worldwide. Of course, that doesn't apply to _you_, the last competent Potions Master working here, just because you had to deal with the stress of your life as a Death Eater spy by taking it out on us students!"

Again, silence descended in the room, with neither wizard moving in their chair or upon their feet, as they stared at each other for long moments. Finally, his face absolutely blank behind his clown makeup, Snape muttered in a barely-audible voice, "I had my own reasons over everything, and I do _not_ intend to explain them to you. Now-"

Interrupting his former professor, Ron coldly stated, "Those reasons being the death of Lily Potter and your involvement with that, at the very least, Snape." Steadily watching the dumbstruck wizard before him, the young man continued in an iron-hard tone. "It is I who will pass judgment upon you, and to do so, I learned all that was needful to help me make my pronouncement, which will be done solely in the name of justice. You are not in control here, Snape, so kindly refrain from pressing me in your rush to a verdict. Instead, I want you to think carefully, since of all the decisions that led you to this point, you are now being offered one final choice."

Despite himself, Severus Snape's throat had dried up at those ringing words of a true monarch, which resulted in the older man's hasty scoff coming out of his mouth as a rasping whisper. "Another choice of being a spy for you, like I did with Dumbledore? To work around others while observing them and their actions for my reports, knowing then that at any moment I could be found out and then be put to an horrible death? No, thank you. Once was enough. If you want me dead, then kill me right here and now!"

An exasperated look appearing on his face, Ron quickly lifted his sword and pointed this weapon directly at Snape, the needle tip of the blade rock-steady, as the king sternly admonished the flinching man who couldn't quite at this specific instant live up to his recent defiant words. "Snape, just shut up and listen, will you? I'm not offering you life or death. I'm offering you the choice between execution, or exile."

The Potions Master immediately goggled at the unyielding teenager in his chair, the sword gripped in this young man's hand ready for use at any moment, unwaveringly aimed at Snape's features, as that person croaked out in utter disbelief, "You want me to _escape?_ I was going to do that any-"

"NO!" roared a furious monarch, his knuckles whitening upon the hilt of his weapon. Glaring at a Snape paralyzed by his enraged interruption, Ron then growled, "You're _not_ going to get off scot-free! Whatever your reasons for your actions over the years, and your justifications and attempts at atonement afterwards, you've caused far too much pain and misery for others! Severus Snape, you _are_ going to be punished for your actions, so make your choice!"

The king's sword twitched to point away from a trembling teacher, at the left side wall, where an image promptly shimmered into existence. The deep darkness of well after midnight, plus the addition of a steady rain falling upon Diagon Alley, made it virtually impossible to see anything clearly of the line of decapitated heads resting on their spikes along the face of Gringotts, yet the single empty gap in this line of beheaded craniums was still evident.

"If you chose this, by tomorrow morning, the first customers there will see the complete set of executed Death Eaters up there, and they'll know that they're finally safe from a bunch of murdering lunatics!" As he spat out his last words, an irate Ron then swung his sword to point at the other wall, where another image then magically formed on the side of this partition.

Despite shaking in his boots over what he'd just been threatened with, a fearful Snape was still distracted by what was now shown upon the wall, gaping at this. Seemingly looking ahead from some ship or patch of land over the ocean waves towards the horizon, he saw before him in full daylight a small, rocky, treeless island, perhaps a mile or two wide and looming straight up from the sea in sheer cliffs about a hundred feet high. Snape was also able to make out that there was nothing on this bare bit of land but a single stone tower several stories high rising from the center of the island.

Turning his head back to stare in honest puzzlement at King Ronald having put his sword down across his thighs and with both palms now resting upon this weapon, a bewildered Snape heard from the young monarch his measured words. "That's an Unplottable island, Snape, somewhere in the Outer Hebrides, where a wizard built that tower centuries ago, which is still in fine shape and quite livable - for a wizard once more."

At that last statement, Snape's mouth fell open in shock, as Ron continued in his steady tone. "If you chose that option, you will be instantly sent there and the banishment spell will then begin, under the following conditions. Firstly, for all of your exile, you will never be allowed to contact anyone, and nobody will know where you are. You've spent your entire life apparently detesting the human race, to in the end become a detestable human being, so I doubt anybody will particularly care about you at all."

Ron blandly ignored Snape's sudden glare over hearing that unkind comment, as the young man went on. "Secondly, all of your food and other supplies will be provided by the Hogwarts house elves. You'll never see, meet, or command them, but they'll be around and keeping an eye on you. Not for escape attempts, though. Why should they? After all, if you try to leave your new home, either by magic or physical means, there'll be only one penalty for that: death from the exiling spell covering the entire island." Ron smirked at his former schoolteacher's quick shudder, with the royal personage then adding, "The house elves will also keep your tower clean and make sure that you don't get sick during your time there."

His attention abruptly caught by that, Snape looked sharply at a seated Ron, to then warily ask, "And just how long might that be? From what you've just said, it appears that my term of exile may not be for life…"

Snape's voice unwillingly trailed off at the bleak look that had unexpectedly appeared on the king's features, as Ron answered in an icy voice of sheer disdain, "Despite all you've done in your life that caused untold grief and anguish to others, you've also willingly put yourself later on at great risk of torture and a dreadful death. Regardless of my own feelings about you, I can't overlook that, so here is my verdict: your sentence in exile shall last the entire time between two choices you previously made. From the day when you first choose to take the Dark Mark from Voldemort in 1978, to this particular day in 1995, when you've obviously made your choice of exile."

Swaying on his feet at this dire news, his lips the color of ashes, Snape disbelievingly muttered to himself, "Seventeen _years?_"

From his chair, King Ronald ostentatiously thumbed the edge of his sword, and he dryly commented, "There's always the other choice."

A wave of bile abruptly arising deep within himself made Snape surprisingly snarl back at the young monarch, "I might actually consider that! After seventeen years of solitary confinement on that island, with absolutely nothing to do, I'll be crazier than Sirius Black after _his_ stint in Azkaban!"

Rather than any expected anger, Snape now received a look of pure exasperation from Ron, as that teenager deeply sighed, to then gruffly explain, "Weren't you listening, Snape? I told you that the house elves would be bringing you food and other supplies. Well, that includes everything that's here in these rooms." Ron took his right hand away from his sword, to then casually wave around the entire potions workplace.

Beadily eyeing Snape gawking back at him, Ron brusquely went on, "I'm not exiling you just to get you out of everyone's hair - though that's a bonus - but when you're stuck on the island, I _will_ expect you to do something actually useful during your punishment! You'll have peace and quiet, no students to bother you, no running around for any Dark Lord or even Dumbledore himself, and finally, all the time in the world to work on your potions!"

Snape was back to swaying on his feet, this time in absolute dumbfoundment, as he unthinkingly blurted out, "That really doesn't seem like any kind of penalty-"

"Oh, yes, it is!" beamed an interrupting Ron towards a suddenly-suspicious Snape. An evil ear-to-ear grin now slowly developed upon the face of the new ruler of the British wizarding world, that in turn made the Potions Master panickily feel that here was a Weasley far more dangerous that his brothers Fred and George together multiplied a hundredfold. The worried older man's attention was quickly drawn back by a jovial voice, as Ron lifted a finger in the air. "One, you're going to start by developing a totally successful lycanthropy treatment. And yes, Professor Lupin is going to be the first werewolf to be cured of his illness through that potion."

Severus Snape felt like his stomach had just dropped into his boots.

As the horrified Head of Slytherin House stared at his sniggering visitor, Ron put up another finger to then add in a happy tone, "Two, you're not going to ever get the slightest bit of credit or recognition for whatever you come up with. Everything will be brought away from your island home by the house elves, and those potions will then be anonymously delivered to the proper authorities for study, production, and distribution to those who need them."

Putting down his hand to rest once more upon his sword, Ron watched with total fascination for an actual minute as Snape stood there immobile on his feet, looking blankly beyond the younger man in his chair into the distance, without the slightest motion shown anywhere on his body, except for the veins clearly throbbing in the Potion Master's temples. Eventually, a strangled pair of words managed to escape from Snape's tight lips, "I…accept."

"Pardon?" asked a polite Ron, leaning back in his chair and giving the professor a very innocent look.

Experiencing without question the most vile mood of his life, Snape snarled to his tormentor a further clarification, "I've made my choice, blast you! I choose exile, and I hope I never have to see you again-"

There was perhaps the faintest 'pop' of air rushing to fill in the sudden vacuum at the exact point in the potions workplace where Severus Snape had been standing a moment before, until he'd then vanished from sight. Getting out of his chair, Ron idly commented to nobody in particular, "Those sentiments are totally mutual, Snivelus."

Shaking his head, the young man wearing his crown then abruptly grinned, and snickered aloud, "Half a year from now, I'm going to have a really good laugh when I think of dear old Snape hopefully standing in front of one of those unbreakable mirrors in that island tower, placed in every single room there, and waiting for the spell to end and look once more like his old self. Which will happen - for exactly one second. Hey, I said that spell would end after six months; it wasn't like he even bothered to _ask_ if another spell would then automatically happen to him, to change him into an entirely different clown for the _next_ six months! And the next six months after that, and after that, too, for the rest of his sentence…"


	10. Chapter 10

Ron Weasley casually mused, "You know, Headmaster, when I was getting ready for our meeting today, the first thing that came to mind about how to properly punish you, for your all-too-predictable attempt to promptly use Legilimency upon myself when I showed up here, was to simply transfigure you into an actual goat, and then anonymously drop your new four-legged body into the pen of some farmer whose infamous reputation throughout the entire county concerning his alleged perversions with the local livestock is totally dead on the money."

The new monarch of the British wizarding world paused for a few seconds, as the young man then eyed the other person sitting in their chair behind the large desk with the bowl of lemon drops on the top of this piece of furniture in the Hogwarts Headmaster's office, checking on exactly what effect that recent outrageous suggestion had produced upon that recipient. Yes, the face of Albus Dumbledore had now turned as white as his waist-length beard, so a satisfied Ron went on in his current offhand tone. "But doing that, no matter how much fun it'd be, just wouldn't really express my true feelings about you and your whole idiotic actions over your entire lifetime!"

The royal teenager stood there before the Headmaster's desk as he finished off his abruptly-furious statement that had caused his face to become brick-red from sheer ire, matching the exact color of his scarlet hair. Glaring at the silent man in his chair, Ron then gritted through his clenched teeth, "Oh, so you're probably thinking I'm just having some childish temper tantrum about things I don't understand! All right, then, maybe _this_ will convince Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore that I've finally run out of patience with him!"

Ron lifted up his right hand to then fixedly stare at what was grasped in his fingers. In the next instant, the slim stick of wood in Ron's grip burst into intense flames that quickly charred every bit of that wand into ashes, without causing the young wizard any harm at all.

Not that Dumbledore cared anything about Ron's good health at that precise moment. Held totally restrained by bands of transparent magical energy entirely covering the aged man's body, and also preventing the Leader of the Light from performing wandless magic during his abrupt mental distress from what he'd just witnessed, in his immobile face the Headmaster's eyes bulged in complete disbelief.

Ignoring this, Ron instead brought up his hand to his lips as he idly blew off the ashes clinging to his unscathed fingers, to then pay no attention as the restraining energy bands holding Dumbledore fast suddenly disappeared, with that elderly wizard slumping down in his high-backed chair, as he whispered half to himself in absolute horrified incredulity, "You just destroyed the Elder Wand…"

Coolly gazing at the Headmaster that had collapsed back in his seat, Ron gave a calm nod of affirmation to that statement, to then speak with an actual hint of sarcasm, "If your memory's failing you, I suppose I should remind you that I also did the same thing with the Resurrection Stone, and the Cloak of Invisibility would have already been fed to the giant squid, if it wasn't for the fact that it's about all that Harry has from his dad."

Dumbledore looked up with a wild glint in his eyes that had finally stopped twinkling, to then tremblingly mutter towards an impatient Ron, "But it was the Elder Wand-"

"It was a stick of wood that caused the deaths of a few thousand people! Centuries of fighting and stealing and killing among wizards, just so they could have one of the Deathly Hallows and be powerful, no matter whom they hurt! Like you did, Dumbledore, starting with your own family."

Not expecting at all that surprising statement, the Headmaster jerked his head back and stared in utter shock at Ron harshly regarding the older man. The monarch continued in his bitter voice, "I was forced to learn what happened between yourself, your brother, and your sister, but _you_ were actually there. _You_ were the one who should have been the most affected by the various tragedies back then, causing you to at least try to change your arrogant nature. But no, while there might have been some real sorrow in your soul about your actions then and the resulting consequences of those events, when the next opportunity came to show that you'd changed, that you put others before yourself, Albus Dumbledore instead totally failed to do this."

That identified individual gazed blankly at the angry young man in front of his desk, to then bewilderedly say, "I don't have the faintest-"

"Tom Marvolo Riddle." Ron delivered this Dark Lord's full name in a steady monotone, continuing in his dead-calm voice until the very end. "You found him in a Muggle orphanage, learned what he was like even then, and brought him to Hogwarts, showing that boy true magic and the possibility of a better life. Then, when school ended, _you sent him back to that orphanage._" Those final words were delivered with intense, absolute scorn towards the flinching wizard in his office chair.

After a few moments of shamed silence in the Hogwarts chambers, Dumbledore bestirred himself into a genuine attempt at self-justification. "Those were the rules then. What else could I have done?"

Ron derisively snorted, and he next cuttingly commented, "You could have taken Riddle home to your brother's house."

Dumbledore abruptly sat upright in his chair, blurting out, "_What?_"

The mouth of the young king now thinned into a mirthless smile. "Oh, yes. Give someone who'd never experienced it before an actual home, even for a short time. Have a damaged boy meet a seriously-broken girl, and maybe he'd learn kindness and compassion for someone far worse off than him. True, this might not have happened - but there was still a chance for it, except that Albus Dumbledore believed he knew better, as usual, and ignored a chance to think of others rather than himself. That pretty much explains all of your life, doesn't it, Headmaster?"

The icy eyes of a true sovereign gazing at him pinned back Dumbledore in his chair, also freezing upon that aged wizard's lips any possible defense, as the condemning words resounded throughout the office.

"You really seem to be in love with your titles, Dumbledore, since you keep trotting them out whenever you can. Let's see, Vanquisher of the Dark Lord Grindelwald, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, Headmaster of Hogwarts, Leader of the Order of the Phoenix."

Ron then ostentatiously glanced over at the corner of the office where this living symbol of the group commanded by the elderly wizard was peacefully perched upon that bird's stand, placidly regarding both of the humans in the room. Turning back to Dumbledore, Ron disdainfully added, "The odd thing is, when you strip away every one of the titles, all that's left is just a man who isn't particularly good at any of those jobs."

In reaction to this ultimate insult, all Dumbledore did was to sit frozen in his chair, possessing a set face that had two small red blotches suddenly appear upon his lined cheekbones. Keeping his gaze locked with the steady stare of his accuser, the older man remained silent as Ron went on.

"In no particular order, you were one of the most influential members of the previous government, but you remained perfectly fine with having a corrupt, weak-willed politician run the wizarding world into the ground. Not to mention totally ignoring the pureblood bigotry that was allowing inbreeding among themselves to destroy the next couple of generations of wizards and witches by producing numerous squibs, instead of actually trying to persuade those racist idiots that unless they changed their minds about the half-blood and the muggleborn, actual extinction was a possibility. Not that anybody would've really missed those morons, though."

Taking a deep breath, Ron continued his diatribe. "As for leading the Order of the Phoenix, during both the First and Second Wars, just what did you actually _do_ that helped end either conflict? You ordered your followers to use only the mildest spells possible in fighting against your enemies who themselves had absolutely no compunction against killing anyone else! So even if you did manage to capture and subdue any Death Eater, they were perfectly free to escape and try again, causing more death and destruction! Most didn't even bother breaking out from prison, due to your placing in power that bastard Fudge as Minster of Magic, who happily pocketed bribes from anyone paying him for their freedom!"

Another deep breath. "Now, I'm speaking from personal experience here, _Headmaster._ Over the last few years since I've been coming to Hogwarts, you've kept insisting that this school's the safest place in Britain! Would it have been so hard for you sometime during your boasts to add 'Except for the mountain troll, the sixty-foot basilisk, and the off-limits third floor.' Not to mention the insane castle caretaker, the deadly-boring history teacher who just happens to be a ghost, the current Death Eater mixing potions in the Slytherin dungeons, and the curse on the Defence Against the Dark Arts position. Don't worry, children, it's perfectly harmless for you to be taught by someone possessed by Voldemort, a werewolf, a handsome phony who made up his exploits, and a Polyjuiced imposter!"

King Ronald the First stood there in the office, swaying slightly on his feet and panting from the oxygen deprivation caused by his lengthy rant, until he was interrupted by a mild question, "What has become of Professor Snape, by the way? He refuses to answer my knocking on his door, and the house elves won't carry any messages to or from him."

For such a calm inquiry, that casual request for information by the elderly wizard hid remarkably well an incensed Dumbledore's true feelings about that child who'd just been lecturing him. How _dare _that little horror of a Weasley impugn his achievements, even going so far as to involve the older man's family! Well, he'd ultimately pay for that and everything else, including this presumptuous monarch's destruction of two of the irreplaceable Deathly Hallows and the blocking of the Headmaster's link with Hogwarts. Apparently that boy shared the usual weaknesses of the younger generation, in thinking that mere force and strength of arms could defeat every one of his adversaries. How foolish. Power came in all forms, and its most effective types included cunning and patience, both of which Albus Dumbledore indeed possessed in great abundance. Now, at this moment, it should be interesting to see how his newest foe, who it had to be admitted was quite unlike his previous Dark Lord opponents, would deal with such a subtle opening gambit-

Giving Dumbledore such an exceptionally baleful look that caused the suddenly-worried wizard to wonder if he'd perhaps accidentally revealed his strategy a bit too soon, Ron Weasley answered in a truly sarcastic tone of evil glee, "If you really want to know, that greasy git and Hagrid declared their undying love for each other a few minutes ago, and then they promptly eloped to Beauxbatons so they could ask Madame Maxime to join with them in a threesome."


	11. Chapter 11

Despite all of Albus Dumbledore's previous researches and investigations over the decades that had ultimately resulted in the most rewarding friendship of his life, it hadn't ever transpired until this very exact time and place for the wizard to discover that phoenixes could actually snigger.

The elderly man stared in mild shock at where Fawkes was chortling to himself upon that bird's perch, as the magnificent avian had done so ever since his young guest mentioned that utterly absurd insinuation concerning his Potions Master, the half-giant Groundskeeper, and the Headmistress of Beauxbatons, with that latter pair of oversized persons frankly possessing the capability of crushing with their sheer body weight-

Dumbledore's attention was now abruptly diverted by a truly horrific image presenting itself in the utmost ghastly detail inside his brain, and the shaken wizard then ignored the phoenix's hilarity trailing off into soft caws of delight, to instead mentally vow that as soon as he could, he'd perform the strongest possible self-oblivation upon himself. Just barely keeping a full-body shudder under control, Dumbledore gladly switched his awareness back to where his visitor had been patiently standing there before his office desk.

King Ronald the First was now showing absolutely no signs of humor, as he coldly regarded the seated older wizard. This young man's formerly derisive voice was now thick with suppressed rage, as he ground out a short statement, "I saw the bars on Harry's window."

"I beg your-"

Rudely interrupting the beginning of Dumbledore's baffled comment, Ron snapped, "When I took Dad's car with Fred and George and went to that Muggle house in our second year, I found my friend stuck behind iron bars that weren't there to protect him or to keep people out. Those things were there to keep Harry _in!_ He was stuck in a prison, just like his godfather, and you knew that and didn't do anything!"

"A necessary sacrifice for the greater good-"

"GOBLINSHITE!" furiously roared Ron, in a thunderous voice that made every item in the office shiver, including the perch of a silent phoenix intently witnessing all of this, with that bird's attention mainly concentrated upon a red-haired teenager standing there with clenched fists as he glared across the desk at the unfazed wizard. Through gritted teeth, Ron continued, "It somehow always works out that the greater good is decided solely by Albus Dumbledore, regardless of the cost to anyone else! From Sirius being in Azkaban over a decade, Remus ignored in his life as a werewolf, Harry left with those Muggles-"

"Mr. Weasley," interjected the twinkly-eyed Headmaster in his best saddened-grandfather delivery, "You heard my reasons before concerning placing young Harry in a home with no magic."

"It didn't have to be with people who hated magic and wizards! And you knew that quite well, since Petunia Evans managed to write you a letter begging to be taught magic just like her older sister, only to be brushed off by yourself! Which resulted in my best mate being treated like the most overworked and abused house elf!"

"The Blood Wards were necessary there-"

"Merlin take the Blood Wards! Just like the ancestry wall in Sirius' house at Grimmauld Place shows him related to most of us purebloods, Harry's connected to a good part of the wizarding world! It wouldn't have been all that much harder to find someone else anywhere at all in the Muggle world that shared kinship with him! But no, it had to be the Dursleys, who you knew would keep Harry under their big, pudgy thumbs!"

"Really, Mr. Weasley-"

"Speaking of Sirius Black, that's just as interesting. We've got someone who'd be able to prove their innocence in five seconds with Veritaserum, but you never even suggested this be given to him! Instead, with Harry's godfather out of the way in Azkaban, you had the free run of Grimmauld Place for the Order, not to mention the absence of somebody more than willing to do whatever it took to make Harry safe and happy!"

A stern look was now bestowed upon a ranting Ron by an uncompromising Dumbledore, who reminded his angry guest, "Voldemort's horcrux in Harry required that he be kept away even from those in our world who were concerned for him."

An expressive roll of the monarch's eyes clearly revealed his opinion about that, along with a very sarcastic rejoinder, "Oh, yes, as declared by the great Dumbledore, who had maybe five minutes yearly in his busy schedule to investigate those dark items. Not like Lord Sirius Black, head of the House of Black, immensely wealthy and with centuries of family history in dealing with those exact kinds of magic. All you had to do was to _tell_ him about the horcrux, and even if you'd done that after he was totally nutters from Azkaban, Sirius would've searched the whole world to find something to get that piece of shite out of his godson's head! I mean, how exactly would've it hurt for him to know about the horcrux then? Riddle sure as hell did, what with his connection to Harry!"

"Ah, there you have come to the heart of the matter, Mr. Weasley," sonorously stated Dumbledore, all while ignoring the killer glare from the king in the office presently having his royal title totally disregarded. "In the end, it would have finished in a final confrontation between young Mr. Potter and Lord Voldemort, all as foretold by the prophecy-"

With a quick wave of his hand, the Sword of Gryffindor appeared in King Ronald's grip, to then be held at eye level with the needle point aimed straight at an abruptly-paling Dumbledore, with the monarch of the wizarding world seemingly heedless of the other man across the desk, to instead continue in his careful examination of the upper edge of the keen blade. Still apparently paying no attention at all to the frozen Headmaster, Ron happily whooped, "Well, give me a dozen tentacles and call me the giant squid! We've got a honest-to-goodness prophecy here! Blimey, isn't it funny how _that_ turned out?" This last sentence was finished in an extremely icy tone unlike his previous cheerful comments, as Ron finished by lowering the sword to his side and giving Dumbledore a truly evil look.

Through his stiff lips, that wary older man managed to utter the following defense: "I was genuinely under the impression that prophecy was accurate, and it was necessary for myself to shape the coming events in order to create for all of us the most acceptable outcome."

"Do you know that whenever you say things like that, my head starts to hurt?" offhandedly commented Ron, shaking his head in disbelief at an evidently-puzzled Dumbledore. Seeing this, the redheaded teenager tried again, this time in scathing contempt. "You mean, you seized upon the prophecy because it meant that nobody but the glorious Albus Dumbledore, victor over Grindewald, now had the chance to defeat another Dark Lord, no matter what you did to accomplish this!" In a rapid shift into mock interest, Ron inquired, "How long did it take for you to ignore the fact that Trelawney came out with her prediction right before you'd have told her there weren't any openings in Hogwarts for a Divination Professor? About two seconds, I'd say."

Headmaster Dumbledore refused to dignify that scurrilous suggestion with an actual response, instead calmly gazing back at the young man glaring towards him, who then snapped, "Not to mention that you managed to overlook all that crazy bint's claims of a horrible death for Harry, which she declared every week or so! It's fascinating how you ignored _those_ prophecies, instead of locking Harry in a cage here in your office for his own safety and feeding him through the bars!"

An unruffled wizard now patiently informed his infuriated guest, "There was no actual danger to Mr. Potter at any time, despite Professor Trelawney's somewhat fervent claims. After all, the perfectly valid prophecy precluded that, as Harry would only be in genuine peril in a direct attack from Voldemort himself."

A massive throb of wandless magic caused the entire room to shudder, as King Ronald barely kept his temper in check, with that furious Weasley then snarling at the startled older wizard, "_That_ happened at least every year, starting with Quirrell! Considering how many times Harry had to go up against the prat, with you somehow managing to overlook all that, a really suspicious bloke might think you were setting up my friend to get killed and take Riddle with him! Even snakelips himself pointed that out, right before I chopped his head off!"

An interested expression appeared on Dumbledore's face, as this man opened his lips to eagerly ask for further details concerning that encounter. However, the elderly wizard instead suddenly shut his mouth, as an utterly serious statement was then made by the other mage now displaying actual royal gravitas in his bearing and tone, rather than self-indulgent unkindness. "Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, in the course of your manipulations of Harry Potter during his entire lifetime, you completely disregarded any concerns whatsoever about his welfare. Indeed, the only thing that seemingly mattered to yourself was to succeed again in defeating a self-styled Dark Lord, no matter what the consequences were to the son of Lily and James Potter, in addition to anyone else in his company, during the last fifteen years or so."

Dumbledore's eyes narrowed, as he stared at the so-called king before himself, wondering exactly how to respond to the abrupt change in the mood in the office, now that things seemed to be coming to a head. *Hmmm, that upstart brat seemed eager enough before to provoke myself, perhaps to cause me to make a mistake of some sort. Now, he's acting like _he's_ the one in charge and about to make his judgment. Well, let's see how he deals with more calm denial. It shouldn't be too hard to make that Weasley actually lose his temper, considering how he acted before. In any case, you were in the right, no matter what that young sod thinks or says, so let the game continue.*

Sorrowfully regarding the stern figure standing there, Dumbledore murmured a tolerant reproof, "Mr. Weasley, it would be most agreeable if all it took for any evil to be overcome was a mere swordstroke. Your recent actions, even if they might be judged by some as successful, cannot be compared with the difficulty of making the hard decisions necessary to persuade people to act in their best interest. If you would kindly-"

King Ronald had started to tiredly rub his face, to then mutter past his fingers pressing against his features. "It was in their best interest for Ginny to become possessed by Riddle? Or for Hermione to be petrified by that basilisk? Or during your manipulations of the Triwizard Tournament, for Cedric to be murdered?"

Dumbledore tried again in his unperturbed tone, "Those were all tragedies, it must be admitted, but in the course of the greater good-"

"All right, that does it!" loudly announced Ron, steadily staring at the bemused Headmaster looking mildly offended at yet again being interrupted by such an impolite boy. Wearily shaking his head, the young king said mostly to himself, "I _knew_ that phrase was going to come up again sooner or later, spoken by someone who has absolutely no idea what it really means!" The Sword of Gryffindor that had been held down in Ron's right hand for the last few minutes was once more lifted up to point right at a frozen Dumbledore, who was forced to listen to the following harsh words.

"Listen, you pillock with as much hair in your ears as in your beard, the greater good means the good of others, not yourself! A true leader tries to make things better by showing the way for those who chose of their own free will to follow him! Not somebody who manipulates everything possible to control people he views as too dim-witted to properly look after themselves-" Cutting himself off, Ron now exasperatedly waved his sword around the office, as the redheaded teenager then reluctantly understood that the condescending expression currently being bestowed upon himself by Dumbledore showed that his words weren't getting through to the older wizard.

Which finally made up the mind of King Ronald the First, as that monarch now made his newest royal proclamation:

"Albus Dumbledore, it is my judgment that you are unfit for every one of your offices and responsibilities. Not merely at present, but for all the years you held them, and at any time in the future. You are hereby directed to resign as Headmaster of Hogwarts and as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. Your title as Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards will go to the next holder of that position. Since its goal of defeating Voldemort has been accomplished, the Order of the Phoenix is now dissolved, and your task of leading that group ends with it. Furthermore, your departure from all public posts will continue for the rest of your life; you will never again join or lead any kind of government or private organization in the wizarding world. Nor may you accept any offers of employment in any influential form of private media, corporation, club, society, or institute, or party. You will be, whether you like it or not, a simple member of the public, just like anyone else."

For long moments, the only sound in the office was the soft breathing of all there, as the two wizards locked eyes with each other. Finally, Dumbledore then said in a very calm voice, with more than a hint of pure fury lurking deep in this, "I suppose that if I politely decline to go along with any part of that entire load of rubbish, you'll immediately have a temper tantrum and chop off my head, too?"

Ron simply shrugged, as the sword in his hand now vanished. Lifting a bemused eyebrow at the older man, the monarch said dryly, "Are you kidding? Mum would never forgive me for doing something like that, not in a million years! But speaking of all that time, you're going to have to make, right here and now, an actual choice in how much longer you'll live: a month, or whatever years are left to you."

"Still more threats or listings of my presumed mistakes, Mr. Weasley?" coldly replied Dumbledore, all while ignoring the faint, niggling feeling there was something he was missing. Inwardly dismissing this, the Headmaster of Hogwarts (and he would be exactly that and more as long as he wished, no matter whatever else came of this young bully's demands or attempts at intimidation) went on. "Those are not likely to encourage myself to obey such idiotic-"

Sadly shaking his head, as Ron again interrupted a man he'd once admired, the monarch of the wizarding world then told his subject, "Dumbledore, I wasn't trying to convince _you_." Right after those words, the teenage boy turned to look straight into the intelligent eyes of Fawkes the phoenix, who'd been silently observing and listening to all that had just occurred in the office.

Perched on his stand, the legendary, immortal creature of the clouds, airs, and skies that was the sovereign of birds worldwide continued to hold the gaze of his fellow ruler, until Fawkes then slowly nodded once.


	12. Chapter 12

"_Fawkes?_" gasped Dumbledore in a tone of absolute betrayal, as his blood then actually froze at the mournful look sent towards this man by his feathered friend, as that bird now uttered a short caw of true sorrow which also had evident reproof in this sound. The elderly wizard's disbelief was further increased by the quiet words of the other human there that caused a mortified Dumbledore to hold his tongue.

"We were just kids then, Dumbledore, so I suppose we had an excuse years ago for accepting your casual dismissal about the loss of the Philosopher's Stone. Except back then, you really should have been more regretful about this rock being destroyed that could have easily extended the already-lengthy life of a hundred-plus years old wizard. But even Hermione never came up with the most simple answer to that: you already _had_ something that gave you longevity. Phoenix tears."

Ron looked off in the distance, gazing unseeingly at the far wall of the office as he ignored from across himself the huddled figure with a pale face matching the hue of that man's beard and robes. Softly speaking, the king recited, "_Legends of Ye Beastes,_ by an unknown author whose name you never discovered even after you unearthed that crumbling scroll shoved under some other decaying documents in the furthest bookshelf of the Hogwarts Library. I believe it was on a Tuesday in November, raining too hard for Quidditch, so an idle fourth year wandered around in there, until you located something purely by accident that obsessed you for the next forty years. Until when your hair and beard were already prematurely white, you at last found and persuaded a flaming bird just freed from his glowing-hot eggshell to be your friend. After that, it was a short step to a steady diet of something that would always maintain your health and vigor, even if your outer appearance aged. Not to mention the rather odd side effect of a permanent craving for sweets."

With no hint of mirth upon his set features despite what he'd just said, Ron now eyed the silent wizard behind the desk, and he went on in his steady voice. "Of course, that was nothing against the biggest drawback of them all due to your continuous consumption of what Fawkes provided. Not only couldn't you use any other kind of longevity potion or magic, but if your supply of phoenix tears ever ran out, you'd be dead inside a month as old age finally took its toll."

His gaze darting to where the magnificent bird sat immobile upon his perch, Dumbledore husked for the first time in minutes, "Fawkes would never-"

"Fawkes has a mind of his own," interjected Ron in a tone of icy rebuke. The red-haired monarch then sighed, and he spoke almost to himself, "Us blokes have a tendency to forget that, you know. We start taking our friends for granted and begin acting like total pillocks. Blimey, what Harry and Hermione put up from me…! Well, after this, I'm going to humbly apologize to them both, doing whatever groveling is necessary, and then thanking them for keeping me as their friend, instead of them reaching the end of their patience over what I said and did, and giving me a good punch on my nose before they stormed off. Like Fawkes here has, though I think he'd probably just fly away without a second thought."

That final comment caused Dumbledore to shoot a truly alarmed glance at his faithful avian ally, who was looking fiercely back with glittering eyes at this worried wizard. Seeking to soothe any ruffled feathers and feelings of the bird over there, the elderly man started to speak in his most appeasing voice, "Fawkes, I'm sure that we can discuss this-"

The phoenix crossly jerked away his gaze from his longtime human companion, to then peer with evident concentration for several moments at Ron, who eventually nodded in acceptance, as he looked over at a befuddled Headmaster in his chair. Shaking his head again, the king firmly told the other wizard, "_No_ discussions, just a decision. Now, here's how it's going to be. You can tell me to piss off; you're bloody not going to do what I said, and you'll fight me every step of the way in keeping all of your power, titles, and offices. Fine, then. I'll just walk away and leave you to your schemes, and Fawkes will wait until he's absolutely sure that you're going to be a total ass about this, not caring about anybody but yourself. Then, he'll leave, and a couple of weeks later, we'll hold a very nice funeral for you. I'll make sure to toss a last few lemon drops into your grave."

The enraged glare Dumbledore sent towards Ron for saying that last derisive comment should have produced, from its scorching heat alone that blazed through the air of the office, a classic case of regicide.

The totally unaffected king simply smirked back at the glowering wizard, as the younger man went on. "On the other hand, whether you believe it or not, Fawkes still has some feelings of friendship for you, even if they're pretty fragile now. So, as he suggested, you get a chance to retire with dignity. You announce you're stepping down from all your responsibilities and positions, because just like the old stories about heroic wizards, now after so many years of leading your forces that in the end splendidly triumphed, you're leaving in a blaze of gory, to a comfortable retirement in your old age at a peaceful cottage, where you shall work on your memoirs. Everyone will accept this, because that's what people expect. You'll have the thanks of the wizarding world, medals, banquets with lots of speeches gushing with praise - I'll be at one or two, I expect, though I think I'll send Mum to most of these - and when it's all over, you'll vanish from public life and in a couple of years, you'll be completely forgotten."

In his seat, Dumbledore was gripping the arms of his chair hard enough so that his fingernails sank an appreciable distance into the centuries-old wood, as this furious man struggled for control over his temper. Just barely accomplishing this, as proven by that wizard's next words and their tone, Dumbledore now snarled, "And if I choose an entirely different course of action? Such as giving an interview to the Daily Prophet expressing at great length my opinion about a so-called king?"

Ron just grinned cheerfully at the shimmering wizard, to then chuckle, "Do whatever you like, Dumbledore. I won't care, or even bother to notice. I'm going to be too busy elsewhere, running this bloody country with all its bloody wizarding sheep. You, however, should be a bit more careful about what you do, because exactly who do you think is going to have enough time to keep a close eye on you?"

At that moment, Fawkes drew the eyes of both humans by shortly flapping his spectacular wings, to then fold these back against his body, as the phoenix warbled an actually sarcastic trill, all while beadily examining a paling Dumbledore. There was now a short pause in the office, as the seated elderly wizard momentarily ignored the other two persons in the room while he frantically sorted out his options in his head, to at last dolefully admit to himself he was being forced to chose the least disagreeable alternative besides a very slow submission to death from old age. Glumly taking whatever speck of comfort he could from the inner reassurance that this wasn't an actual surrender, but merely a proud retreat from an intolerable position, Dumbledore mentally vowed to himself that he'd soon overcome this too, somehow.

That thought made the elderly wizard actually perk up, as shown by this man's dignified squaring of his shoulders, as he then regarded his momentarily-victorious opponent with a calm gaze that actually managed to hide his fondest wish to strangle the carrot-headed infant over there and then fricassee that traitorous chicken on his perch. Instead, in his haughtiest voice, Dumbledore acceded, "Very well, Mr. Weasley, I reluctantly accept your terms. When do you wish me to announce my retirement-"

A beaming Ron crowed, "Now!" as he snapped his fingers, which caused every personal item of Albus Dumbledore to vanish from the office and also throughout the entire castle.

"_What?_" shrieked that dismayed wizard, as he stared in shock at the empty spaces along the wall shelves in the office where several mysterious objects had existed mere moments ago. Forgetting everything else, Dumbledore protested at the top of his lungs, "Those were irreplaceable magic artifacts, you bloody-!"

"Well, if anyone ever wants them again, they can dive to the deepest part of the lake and collect them from there," snorted Ron, who then gave the former Headmaster of Hogwarts a very suspicious glower. In a truly revolted voice, the king now commented, "You're just lucky I'm never going to tell Harry how thoroughly you were tracking him, because then he'd fly his broom at full power right up your wrinkled arse. Which would be a horrible thing to do to an innocent broom."

A suddenly poker-faced Dumbledore superciliously informed someone who clearly had no idea about the harsh responsibilities of power. "It was necessary to maintain a close eye upon Mr. Potter at all times-"

"Even in the boys' showers in the Gryffindor dorm bathroom? What were you guarding him from, the Incredible Soap Monster?" Ron threw up his arms in sheer disgust, and he shared a jaundiced look with Fawkes, until the phoenix then rolled his eyes in irritation and abruptly disappeared in a flash of flame, leaving behind an empty perch.

Staring in increasing worry at the spot where Fawkes had unexpectedly taken his leave, Dumbledore cast an appealing glance over at where Ron was now also lifting his eyes up to the ceiling in his own equal exasperation. Just before the older wizard could actually express his concerns, the young monarch grumpily informed the seated man, "Fawkes is now in your new home, Dumbledore."

As his lower jaw promptly dropped open to produce a round hole of a mouth entirely encircled by hair, a dazed Dumbledore just barely managed to squeak, "Er, what- Where-"

His mood immediately brightened by that reaction, Ron smirked at the flabbergasted wizard, to then gleefully inform him, "Oh, like I said before about your retirement, it'll be in a brand-new cottage, with a nice view from your front windows, having a couple of rooms, and also a rose garden for you to putter around there on sunny days. That last is supposed to be traditional anyway, so I had the Hogwarts house-elves plant it at the back of the cottage when they built the whole thing, down to Fawkes' new perch next to the writing desk where he'll be at your elbow every single moment of the day."

Actually looking as if he'd drop dead from sheer apoplexy, Dumbledore gritted, "Just _where _is this supposed idyllic spot that I'm to spend my remaining days?"

Blandly meeting the older wizard's suffused face, Ron Weasley answered in his best deadpan, "A really charming location among the woods of the hillside overlooking Little Hangleton." As an expression of utter revulsion instantly developed on Dumbledore's features, the red-haired teenager enthusiastically nodded, as this young king confirmed the older wizard's worse fears, snickering, "Yes, it's the exact spot where the Gaunt shack was, with its horrible family that included Riddle's grandfather, mother, and uncle. When I first saw the place, I knew it was meant for you, and nobody but you."


	13. Chapter 13

For Dumbledore, the shocks only kept on coming, as Ron now waved the wizard up from his office seat, while briskly ordering the older man, "All right, let's be off! In case you haven't noticed, dinner is starting, which makes it the perfect time for you to perform your very last duty as Headmaster of Hogwarts."

Not budging at all in the chair, Dumbledore instead glared at the stripling standing there across the desk, who'd somehow outmaneuvered him as adroitly as possible. With extreme suspicion in his tone, the wary wizard growled, "What might _that_ possibly be, Mr. Weasley?"

Giving his former hero a very pitying smile, as if ruefully regretting this unmistakable sign of Dumbledore's beginning descent into senility, the young monarch patiently explained, as if to a child, "Your retirement speech to everyone in the Great Hall, of course."

"_WHAT!_" promptly exploded from Dumbledore, who further imitated an erupting volcano by nearly hitting the ceiling during his upward leap from his chair, ending with the man standing there behind his desk with clenched fists, a brick-red face, and blazing eyes that expressed nothing less than the strongest urge to bury his visitor neck-deep in molten lava.

Seemingly paying no attention to all this, Ron Weasley instead just nodded his head seriously, to further advise, "Yes, and since you've got only the time from here to the Great Hall to work out in your head exactly what you're going to say, you'd better start now. Especially since it'll be front-page news on the Daily Prophet, with every word quoted on how you're thanking everyone for their valued support, plus you'll feel perfectly content during your retirement, knowing that things will be in good hands."

"Perhaps you'd like to sit on my knee and deliver the entire speech while I drink a glass of water, Mr. Weasley?" came the icy words just barely forcing themselves past tight lips, as Albus Dumbledore stood there in his absolute fury, clawed fingers busily working away, as if in practice for shoving a certain young man off one of Hogwarts' moving staircases to the hard floor far, far below.

This same teenager just showed his triumphant smirk that Dumbledore was coming to deeply loathe, as Ron now happily commented, "So you did sneak out to the Muggle music-halls when you were my age!"

Snickering to himself, as the other enraged wizard appeared just about to leap over his desk and start using his beard as an assassin's garrote, the red-haired king then abruptly became more somber, as he looked coolly at Dumbledore, to inform him in a steady tone, "Due to all the manipulation you've done to everyone else your whole life, I don't feel the slightest bit guilty in using _you_ as a ventriloquist's dummy."

Ron's voice then deepened into a menacing rumble, accompanied by an actual shiver of the entire room as that part of the castle experienced a mild tremor caused by wandless magic. "We're leaving _now,_ Dumbledore. You can do it on your own two feet, or I'll drag you along by your nose."

Several minutes later, a pair of wizards stood side-by-side before the massive double doors to the Great Hall. Neither said a word to each other, continuing the cold silence between themselves that had existed during all of their departure from the office to then walk down to the lower floor. Instead, in his position just out of arm's reach of Dumbledore, Ron glanced at the doors, and those panels slowly opened wide in response to his unspoken command. The soft chatter of a roomful of people at their evening meal quickly trailed off, as the students and staff of Hogwarts looked up from their dinner to see two people now stride into the Great Hall.

After his first few steps, Dumbledore's familiar benign paterfamilias appearance remained on his face solely due to decades of practice, as he kept heading towards the staff table. Nobody was yet close enough to witness the skin angrily tighten over the elderly wizard's cheekbones, which was this man's only evident reaction to the fact that instead of the expected stares of awe and respect he'd come to take for granted from everyone in his company, all of those flattering expressions were currently directed at someone else. To be precise, the young sod matching the older man's strides.

Ron Weasley maintained his own calm face while strolling alongside Dumbledore, though he developed an actual sardonic glint in his eyes from seeing mouths dropping open throughout the entire room at the sudden appearance tonight of their royal ruler. Particularly entertaining to him were those looks of total shock from those huddling together at one of the tables in the room. However, what really appealed to Ron were the many empty spaces there along the Slytherin table, which was presently occupied by only about half of that Hogwarts house, with the rest of this group totally absent.

An evil snigger just barely kept to himself bubbled inside Ron's mind, as he joyously contemplated the amusing fact that for once, some pureblood families were smart enough to realize it'd be best for them to whisk away their youngest members from a school that no longer feared extinct Death Eaters and also vastly outnumbered the formerly arrogant sons and daughters of someone probably right now occupying a spike attached to the front of Gringotts and having a swam of flies buzzing around their decapitated heads.

Considering that for years a good part of Slytherin House had strutted through the stone corridors of Hogwarts, supremely confident that nobody would ever call them on their bullying behavior, the new monarch of the British wizarding world was absolutely unconcerned about someplace like Durmstrang having a sudden influx of foreign students from Hogwarts. The more intelligent of these wizard and witch transfers would do their best to fit in their new school, staying out of trouble and lying low. As for the rest, such as Draco Malfoy… Well, if that slicked-hair git really did try to throw his weight around there despite a notable lack of charm, manners, money, influence, or magical ability, a certain ferret would quickly learn the error of his ways, with any luck in the most painful manner possible.

Come to think of it, Ron actually hoped that Malfoy somehow managed to survive his next couple of years at Durmstrang, if only to savor the berk's expression when King Ronald the First showed up at his graduation ceremony as that year's surprise guest speaker. Oh, what he could mention in his lengthy discourse then on how not to behave like a total pillock in British wizarding society, with numerous examples taken from the actions of an anonymous, bumbling Hogwarts pupil over the several years this incompetent, would-be junior Dark Lord ludicrously attempted to harass such fine blokes as Ron Weasley, Harry Potter, and Hermione Granger…

The entire population of the Great Hall now watched a red-haired teenager's face light up in a blissful smile that caused many feminine hearts there to momentarily flutter, only to have their hopeful moods promptly dashed, when this monarch broke away from his course alongside Dumbledore, to then head directly at a specific spot at one of the tables in the room. Slowing down in his walk, this elderly wizard sent a surprised glance toward the back of Ron's head, to then change this expression into a look of peevish irritation that was maintained even as Dumbledore stepped to the staff table and sank down into the Headmaster's chair there.

An actual pout now developed upon Albus' features, as he looked around in his seat, to see all there completely ignore him, to instead intently watch and listen as Ron stopped at the Gryffindor table and enthusiastically greeted his best friends there. Beaming as he examined Harry's unmarked forehead, Ron looked down at the other seated teenager as he told Harry, "Listen, mate, we'll talk later, and you can tell me all about Dumbledore's retirement speech, but I've got to do something more important. So, if you'll excuse us…"

Trailing off to deliver a wink of sheer conspiracy into Harry's bewildered face, Ron then turned to someone who was also taken utterly aback, as Hermione stared in disbelief at the confident young man before herself. Her astonishment only increased at then hearing from him, "Hermione, would you please get up? It'll be easier to take you along if you're not sitting down."

Hesitating, to then shoot towards Harry a baffled plea for guidance that was met with an equally confused shrug from that young man, this addressed girl cautiously stood up from the table. As she looked away from Ron's pleased smile, Hermione glanced around the Great Hall, and she abruptly blushed at finding herself the center of attention from everyone there. Strangest of all were the numerous hard stares from other girls her own age or older from each of the student tables, including some from her own Gryffindor House. Trying to understand what was going on, Hermione jerked her head back at Ron's jovial comment, "All right then, off we go!"

After the very last word of that odd statement, King Ronald the First placed his right hand upon the shoulder of Hermione Granger, and both of these young people immediately vanished into thin air, without any sound whatsoever made by this magical disappearance.

A tremendous uproar promptly broke out in the Great Hall, as people there reacted to this, only quieting down a little as the population of the room paused in their questions, shouts, and comments among themselves to then consideringly eye Harry Potter still in his table seat, and looking positively gobsmacked. Jerkily swiveling his head around as he became aware of everyone's interest, the person bearing the hated label of "The-Boy-Who-Lived" threw up his hands in absolute mystification, as he sputtered, "Why are you all looking like that at _me? _I haven't seen Ron since the last time he was here, until he walked in right now with-"

Coming to a dead stop in his heated declaration, Harry then slowly turned his head to look at a certain place at the staff table. Everyone's gaze then followed to where Harry Potter was staring, right at a seated Albus Dumbledore presently appearing to have taken a Bludger right between the eyes.

*THAT LITTLE TURD DID IT TO ME AGAIN!* was emblazed inside this aged wizard's brain in letters of bright fire. Just barely managing to restrain from bellowing out loud this furious assertion, Dumbledore devoted his entire willpower to controlling himself, and he finally succeeded in this, only to also become aware of the absolute silence in the Great Hall, as this wizard blinked around at an entire room filled with people watching him in clear expectation of some kind of an explanation.

An unthinking Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore now commenced his speech that would be fully quoted in newspapers throughout the entire British wizarding world, dazedly opening his mouth to begin his presumably magnificent farewell address as Headmaster of Hogwarts, Leader of the Order of the Phoenix, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, and Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards:

"Er…"


	14. Chapter 14

The instant Hermione appeared in her new location, she leaned forward to thump very hard her stiffened index finger against the chest of the young man in front of herself, all while furiously shouting into his face, "YOU'RE NOT RON WEASLEY! Who _are_ you?"

"Are ye the same gurrrl who came here just a breath ago, wi' the big teeth an' hair that seemed like ye brushed it wi' a thistle?"

Again, Hermione moved in a blur, spinning around as she drew her wand at the same time, only to then halt in her tracks as the young witch pointed this spell-casting stick directly at the mature woman now standing there several yards away in the immense room, after this stranger had obviously spoken that rather rude comment in the thickest Scots burr Hermione had ever heard. The only reaction to being threatened by the younger woman was the extremely frosty expression that slowly crossed this oddly-familiar person's face, as she disapprovingly looked down her pointed nose at the wand aimed right at the center of her slender body clad in one of the most antiquated witch's robe Hermione had ever seen outside a book of outdated wizarding fashions she'd once come across in the Hogwarts Library.

Not that Hermione had time to further wonder about this stranger's odd clothing, particularly since her supposed friend had now stepped up besides herself, savagely hissing into her ear, "Put it _DOWN,_ 'Mione!" as Ron then quickly reached out with his hand, placing this on top of the girl's own hand gripping her wand, to firmly shove away the stick still aimed at the other female. About to open her mouth to shout at Ron for doing this, Hermione checked herself at seeing the very pale countenance of this young man by her, who now spoke directly to the strange woman in a truly apologetic tone. "My lady, I'm really sorry about this-"

Hermione's bewilderment only increased at hearing the soft chuckle interrupting Ron, as the other woman allowed her stern face to thaw out slightly, accompanied by an actual twinkle in her eyes. Shaking her head at the pair of youngsters gaping at her, another accented rumble came out, "Nay, nay, dinnae fash yerself, tis' part an' parcel of livin' in dangerous times. Still, methinks ye should begin the tale, an' not before time, too." Switching her bright gaze towards Hermione, this youthful witch felt a shiver begin deep inside, as an intense stare that went right through her mind to the back of her skull was then bestowed upon the only child of a pair of Muggle dentists.

After several endless moments, a dazed Hermione heard the stranger across the room speak with an actual note of approval in her voice, "Aye, weel, ye'll do, lassie. Now, I'll be awa', leavin' ye in the company of this younker. Gi' him a clout on the ear later on if ye think it needful, th' laddie might in the course o' his account forget to mind his manners. Fare ye well, me lord an' lady." At those last words, a brilliant smile lit up the face of the joyous Scotswoman, as she now blinked out of existence from the room, accompanied then by Hermione's shocked gasp of recognition.

"_Professor McGonagall?_"

A loud guffaw right in her ear made Hermione shy away, turning to see Ron standing there and still laughing, until he finally managed to control himself enough to explain in evident good humor to the other Gryffindor. "No, that's just her usual form for the last couple of centuries. But don't feel too badly about it; that family, especially the women, have always closely resembled each other, just like my own does with our hair. She really liked the other lady back then, who was known as Athena McGonagall, our professor's great-great-great-great-grandmother."

Pausing to stare a little out of focus into the distance of the hall, Ron silently moved his lips as he ticked off the fingers of his hand. Nodding firmly, the teenage boy then told a stupefied girl, "Yeah, that's the right number of greats. Anyway-"

Hermione then managed to rally a bit, as she now demanded in her fiercest tone, staring right into his eyes, "Ronald Bilius Weasley, who _was_ that?"

Comprehending the utter seriousness of the threat lurking inside that question due to the menacing announcement of his full name, Ron instantly answered, "Hogwarts."

* * *

Several minutes later, Hermione leaned back in her comfortable armchair, an exact double of her regular seat in the Gryffindor common room that Ron had casually waved into existence here, and she let her gaze roam around the Greater Hall. It was still the same impressive chamber it had been when she and the rest of the castle's students and staff had been summoned there just several days ago. Now, only she and Ron waiting patiently in his own chair were currently occupying the enormous space, their chairs placed right in the middle of this room. Finally meeting the eyes of the wizard seated across from herself, Hermione said carefully, "So, to sum it up, it's all Salazar Slytherin's fault?"

A sardonic grin tugged at the corners of Ron's mouth, as he snorted, "Well, it could be put that way." As his guest's lips opened to begin a follow-up inquiry, Ron interrupted Hermione before she could actually form the words, "But, no, we still don't know exactly _why _he did it in the first place! Even afterwards, when Salazar finished his part in building the castle, including the Chamber of Secrets, he never really explained his reasons for making sure she'd start that crazy spell when nine-tenths of the wizarding world picked out a king!"

Hermione faintly smiled at her friend's evident frustration, only to become more serious, as she warily glanced around the Greater Hall. Speaking in a half-whisper, the girl hesitantly asked, "Er, she - Hogwarts - she's listening to us right now, isn't she?"

"Listening, watching, sensing, absorbing our magic," nodded Ron, who hastily went on at the other student's uncomfortable expression. "Hermione, that's why she was created! There's nothing bad about it, any more than your bathroom mirror at home is spying on you when it reflects you after taking a shower. Hogwarts was built to be a safe school for wizards and witches to learn about magic, and during all that time over the last thousand years, she became a real person, looking and acting just like the people inside herself. But Hogwarts isn't actually a human, as she'd be the first to tell you! There's no way to offend her, and you don't need to be offended yourself."

"Oh," said Hermione, subsiding back into her chair as she thought that over. To Ron's mild surprise, another worried look passed over the girl's features, as Hermione then gently touched her face, followed by another question. "Ron, if this is such a safe place, what about the basilisk?"

The young king winced at this apprehensive query, now understanding Hermione's nervous gesture that she'd previously done for several weeks after being cured of her petrifaction several years ago by that magical creature. It had taken that long back then for the girl to quit her acquired habit of making sure she was once more flesh and blood. Ron anxiously tried to reassure his friend, "Look, it wasn't Hogwart's fault."

Frowning as he searched for the proper words, Ron brightened as he came up with the perfect example. "Hermione, you've been to the Burrow. How would you compare it to a Muggle house, just like the one you grew up in?"

Blinking at the unexpected turn their conversation had taken, Hermione started to speak, only to then sheepishly close her mouth, as she obviously kept herself from saying the wrong thing. An unoffended monarch now wryly commented about his beloved home. "Yeah, it's a total jumble, what with generations of Weasleys adding and removing rooms, walls, and anything else that took their fancy. That might work for a small place like ours, but there's always the chance for serious problems with bigger places like Hogwarts."

As a fascinated Hermione listened to him, King Ronald went on in his lecture. "Now, I'm not talking about the castle building itself. It's been almost the same since the Founders finished their work on Hogwarts. The magic that those four wizards and witches used made sure of this, but they also understood that magic itself wouldn't stay the same. In the future, the successors to the Founders were sure to come up with improved spells and other castings, so Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin set only the most basic, permanent enchantments upon Hogwarts: the wards, Muggle-repelling charms, the ability for absorbing wizarding magic, and a few other matters." Ron then flashed a very dry smile at Hermione. "Yeah, the king-selecting thing was the very first of them all."

As his listener giggled, Ron enjoyed her amusement, until he started talking again in a more serious tone. "Now, the problems really started after the first few Headmasters - Headmistresses, too - and you can probably guess what they were." Ron interestedly watched as Hermione thought that over, until a few moments later, the young witch abruptly squeezed her eyes shut in sheer, pained exasperation.

Glumly nodding in agreement, Ron continued as Hermione again regarded him. "Well, just about all of the people in charge for the next five hundred years started meddling with Hogwarts' protections and other magic. They added, removed, changed, ignored, and modified spells, hexes, and enchantments which produced results that were good, bad, or just plain insane. For example, the animated portraits now throughout the castle were created by one Headmaster, and another Headmaster came up with the bright idea of making poltergeists to protect Hogwarts. Peeves is the only surviving one of those, and I have to tell you, he wasn't the very worse scheme that some bloody idiotic Headmaster eventually tried in this place."

"How did - does - she, um, feel about that?" asked Hermione, breaking her attentive silence of the past few minutes to pose that inquiry.

"She endured," Ron shrugged. "That's her main job, after all. No matter what, she always tried to protect the students, even when it kept getting much harder during the next few centuries, what with all the hodgepodge of those old, obsolete, and failing spells weighing her down. That led to the last couple of Headmasters having more power than they should have had over Hogwarts. Some didn't even know what they could do with this, which was a whole bloody lot better than those who did, and went on to abuse their authority. Like Dumbledore."

The bitterness of the young king's voice now made Hermione sit up in her chair, to intently examine Ron's sour face, until she at last cautiously asked, "What about Dumbledore?"


	15. Chapter 15

While watching Hermione stomping back and forth behind her chair during her unceasing tirade against an aged, brain-dead wizard, Ron Weasley discreetly uncrossed his legs that had slammed shut together a few minutes ago at the point where the young witch had described in excruciating detail exactly how she was going to pour a pitcher of boiling gravy upon a certain part of Dumbledore's anatomy, just before she then tossed him to Fluffy, the monstrous three-headed dog that the Gryffindor trio had barely escaped being eaten alive by this creature so many years ago.

After that, Hermione's plans had gotten _really_ nasty.

In his chair inside the Greater Hall, Ron reflected that his friend's innate respect for authority obviously had limits, mainly when overridden by a much more central part of Hermione's character, with this being that young lady's unerring ability to draw the proper conclusions when given sufficiently logical lines of reasoning. Once the king had explained what Dumbledore had done over the last few years simply for his own personal benefit, Hermione promptly came up with more than enough examples of just how many times over that same period where she and the red-haired boy had barely escaped being killed in all of that elderly wizard's manipulations. What had made Hermione even angrier was remembering how Dumbledore's meddling had so often then set the trio of friends against each other, simply to keep Harry Potter biddable and under the Headmaster's control, which would have surely ended with the death of that young man with a lightning scar on his forehead.

The sudden silence in the immense room of Hogwarts Castle jerked Ron away from his grim thoughts, particularly when Hermione now dropped back into her armchair, with this girl's arms irritably folded across her chest and her stern face bearing a remarkably direct look of keen intelligence, comprehensively studying the young man across from herself, who now actually felt beads of nervous sweat popping out on his brow. This didn't bode well.

Indeed, Hermione's next determined words only made Ron more uneasy, as she steely informed him, "You still didn't answer my question that I asked right after we appeared here. Who _are_ you, that came up with such a rational explanation for Dumbledore's motives, and then effortlessly used that information to force him to retire? The Ron Weasley I knew just a couple of days ago, even if he still found out everything then, probably the best he could have come up with was to toss an exploding dungbomb into the Headmaster's office and blame Malfoy for it!"

Despite himself, Ron grinned, only to hastily shift his face back into a more somber mien at Hermione's sudden glare. Collecting his thoughts to begin the necessary explanation that his friend properly deserved, the young monarch started off with, "Hermione, right after we got here, Hogwarts also asked you if you were the same girl that was a shy Firstie back then. Are you?"

Giving the other person in their chair a truly incredulous stare over that odd question, Hermione then snorted, "Of course not! It's been five years, and I've grown…up…" Trailing off in her answer, a startled expression of sheer comprehension now flashed over the girl's features, as she blurted out, "A Time-Turner! That's got to be it-"

"NO! No, no, no, Hermione," firmly interrupted Ron, all while shaking his head with utter resolution. As a bewildered young woman now listened in silence, the king went on. "Frankly, Dumbledore showed he'd finally lost it when he handed over something so dangerous to a mere third-year student."

That was too much for her, as Hermione now said with absolute exasperation, "_Excuse_ me, but the Time-Turner saved us all back then, freeing Buckbeak and everything else-"

"I didn't say it wasn't useful, 'Mione, just that you shouldn't have had it in the first place!" Seeing the storm signals abruptly appear in Hermione's furious eyes, Ron knew he'd better fully explain himself before he got vigorously hexed, and his next words came out in a rush. "Look, you also remember the time Harry and I buggered up catching the Hogwarts Express and we thought it'd be a good plan to use Dad's flying car to get here? Well, if the Ford Anglia wasn't enchanted in the first place, would it have really been that much of a bright idea then for two twelve-year-old boys to drive all the way from England to Scotland?"

The horrific images created in her head by the possible consequences of what Ron had just suggested caused Hermione to shudder in her chair, and it also thankfully cooled her temper more than a bit, which in the end made the young woman reluctantly agree, "All right, you might have a point. The fact is…if I was handed a Time-Turner right this minute, I'd probably never dare to actually use it again, now that I know what can go wrong. But, honestly, Ron, it just seemed like the perfect explanation of how you changed so much."

Relieved that his friend had finally calmed down, the teenage boy beamed at Hermione, as he assured her, "You got a lot closer than most anybody else would have done, 'Mione. No, what you missed had to do with believing a thing made of metal and spells changed me, when there was something else around much more powerful and a lot more experienced with temporal magic. Hogwarts."

Hermione's jaw dropped at this, particularly when Ron excitedly leaned forward in his chair, hands clasped together in his eagerness to at last tell someone what had happened to him. Unconsciously, Hermione also leaned closer, so that their faces were just a foot apart, as the girl gazed deeply into the elated face of King Ronald, while that monarch went on.

"Now, when you and the others were transported back then by Hogwarts out of the Great Hall into here, it took less than a second for everyone else. For me, well…a thousand years or so."

A distant look came over the young man's features, as he continued, "I was, the best I can explain it, _in_ time. Not having it passing around me, growing older either mentally or physically, or anything else humans usually go through. The closest thing I can compare it to is how time acts in people's dreams, with you being able to move around in time like walking around the castle. Only, in my case, the castle was walking around _me!_"

Hermione now fell back in shock into her chair, accompanied by Ron's deep chuckles at her absolute wonder, as the king remained leaning forward while delivering his incredible story. "When it was happening, every bit of it in less than a second and as well a whole millennia, Hogwarts also passed onto me all the magic she'd ever absorbed. It might have been the merest fraction of a single spell done by a witch or wizard in a day, but when you add up all the thousands of people who've been here, and multiply that by how long the castle was doing it… Well, you've seen what I can do now without a wand."

At those last words, Hermione doubtfully regarded someone she'd never thought would ever have the kind of power he now possessed, with all the attending possibilities for misuse. Ron's hurt expression that suddenly appeared on his face showed he'd caught her reservations, as he at once protested, "'Mione, I'm still me! Yes, I've got a lot more now than what I had before, both in power and understanding, and I'm glad about it, considering how things were going! But that doesn't mean I'm about to turn right away into another Voldemort or Dumbledore, hating the whole world or wanting to control everyone!"

"Ron," hesitantly began Hermione. "I know you mean well, but those two wizards might have not meant it either when they were younger. How can you be so sure about everything that might happen?"

A very wry grin now appeared upon Ron's lips, as he looked directly into Hermione's eyes and told her, "Because I've got something that neither of them ever had. Two friends who'll promptly tell me when I've been a prat, and two friends that I can trust enough to know they still like me even when I act like a total git. Likewise, two friends that I absolutely need to apologize towards right now over everything."

"What?" a bewildered Hermione asked, during her reaction to Ron's sudden and unexpected show of vulnerability. She continued watching the young man in his chair across from herself, as an embarrassed blush now slowly rose upwards on his features, with Ron hanging his head and avoiding her eyes, followed by a deep gulp of shame that lead to a supremely awkward statement.

"Hermione Granger, when Hogwarts put me in the dream time, she completely rubbed my nose in everything I did to you and Harry. I had to watch them all over again and again, every single one of the stupid things I said, did, and acted here around you, starting from our first year together with those mean remarks that wound up with you encountering the troll. I…don't think I did anything worse than that later on, but I sure as hell didn't try all that hard to control myself around you for the next couple of years! Frankly, I wouldn't blame you at all if…you decided that enough was enough, and you didn't have anything else to do with me, ever again. If that's the case, then I just want to say…I'm really sorry now for all the times I hurt you, and I hope you'll have a better friend in the future than me, who never knew how lucky he was."

For the next few moments, there was absolute stillness in the Greater Hall, as a mortified young man huddled in his seat, still refusing to meet the dumbfounded gaze of the witch to whom he'd just poured out his heart. This girl was in turn frozen in her chair, as she stared with absolute shock at her friend.

That last word immediately made things so much simpler, as Hermione tenderly smiled through the tears beginning to trickle down her cheeks, and she now reached out across the space between their chairs, to gently stroke with her fingertips the heated face of Ron Weasley. This newly-crowned king jerked up his head at that unexpected contact, his mouth falling open as he witnessed Hermione's tearful face compassionately regarding him, followed by her soft voice.

"Yes, I remember all the bad things you did, Ron. But I also remember a little boy who came to where I was trapped by the troll and helped fight that monster. Later on, this same boy rode a stone chesspiece and willingly sacrificed himself to protect his friends. All that's part of you, Ron, both the bad and the good, to make you into the man who just now asked for forgiveness. Something that two other wizards never did. I give you my pardon for all you've done, and my trust in what you plan to do in the future, my friend."


	16. Chapter 16

As the handkerchief she'd just used to wipe away her tears vanished from her fingers at Ron's glance, Hermione huskily asked, "Are you going to ask for Harry's forgiveness, too?"

A very despondent look promptly appeared on Ron's features, as he glumly nodded, to then tell the girl seated across from himself, "I just hope he takes it as well as you did, 'Mione. After all, I acted just as much a git around him as I did with you - maybe even more, since we were with each other more often around Gryffindor Tower."

"Oh, Ron," pityingly said Hermione, as she now sent towards her friend a glance of sympathy intermixed with mild exasperation. "You should know better than that! Especially since you got that horrible thing out of Harry's head after asking him to trust you, and he did. Does that sound like he doesn't want to be your friend any more?"

Ron Weasley pressed himself back in his armchair, looking even more miserable, as he mumbled, "I just feel like such a total pillock, remembering how much I was jealous of him. It doesn't help at all that now I know for sure Harry either hated all the things I was envious about, never even knew about them, or just thought it was all a load of bloody codswallop."

Hermione couldn't resist asking, despite the possibility of prying into others' privacies, about this unexpected window into the personality of the boy she'd known for years. "Could you be a bit more specific, if you want to, Ron?" As the addressed king's face immediately scrunched up in evident reluctance at this suggestion, Hermione further urged, "It could help you in talking with Harry, like practicing for it."

After thinking that over for several moments, Ron halfheartedly nodded, saying, "Guess you're correct, 'Mione. Well…it was right at the start, and I really mean the whole beginning, when me and him first met on the Hogwarts Express, and I found myself in the same train compartment with the Boy-Who-Lived - except that he didn't even know about this! Plus, later on, when Harry _did_ find out he was famous, he never took advantage of that or just changed the whole blooming subject whenever he could. Which kept on happening for the next couple of years, finishing off with the Triwizard Tournament, when his name came out of that bloody goblet, and I straight away went spare!"

Shooting a rueful glance at where Hermione was biting her lips in a desperate attempt to keep herself under control, Ron sighed, as he then insisted, "You were there, 'Mione, and you stayed on his side when his best mate promptly behaved like a total berk! The only excuse I can make about the whole business now, and I'm the first to admit it's a pretty damn poor defense, is that I simply didn't understand how much Harry hates being famous. Not just about things he had no control over such as surviving when his Mum and Dad didn't, but also in doing things like killing a basilisk or winning the Tournament, when all that did was to make people think he was going to be their savior or the next Dark Lord."

A fascinated Hermione mulling over all this new information about both of her friends now watched Ron tiredly rub his face, until the king's hand dropped back down in his lap, as this young man further confided to his eager listener. "The really weird part is, when I'm finishing my apology to Harry about all that, I'll then tell him what I'm now really grateful for is how much I learned from _him_ about dealing with unwanted fame and how that changes the way people treat you, sometimes not for the better. Because, at this point, I'm in _his_ shoes!"

Hermione hesitantly offered, "Due to being King Ronald the First…?"

"Exactly, 'Mione," again sighed the teenager. "It's starting right now! Didn't you see the way some of the girls in the Great Hall stared at me when I came in there with Dumbledore a few minutes ago? I swear, it was like I was the last pork chop left on the serving platter, and they all had a dab of applesauce ready on their plates, as their knives and forks shot out in a race to see which one of them would get me first!"

Despite herself, Hermione uttered a choked laugh, due to both the absurd image now in her mind at what Ron had just described, and too because of the sudden remembrance that had also come of those very peculiar looks given to herself by the other girls at their house tables when the young man seated in his chair across from herself had taken her away for their private talk together. Hastily dismissing these strange recollections and the resultant odd feelings caused by these with the alacrity of an outdoors ice-skater avoiding a large hole in front of themselves, lest this lead to an unwelcome plunge into icy waters, Hermione then blurted out the quickest thing she could think of to distract herself: "Oh, that's pure Ron, considering your own table manners!"

In the abrupt silence that descended in the Greater Hall, the witch looked over with surprise at where Ron was, only to discover in alarm that this king was blushing furiously, not daring to meet his companion's eyes. It was only after several more very uncomfortable moments that Ron eventually muttered, "Um, 'Mione, Hogwarts had some words to say about that, too. Even if she knows why I acted like this, I still got firmly told off by her to eat more politely in the future, even though it doesn't matter any more."

Tilting her head, Hermione asked in honest bewilderment, "What are you talking about, Ron?"

An expression of mild shame flickered over Ron's features, only to soon be replaced with determination and a hint of repentance. Sighing, the wizard now told his friend something very private. "It started right on our first night here at Hogwarts, just after we got sorted and the food appeared on our tables out of thin air. Well, that certainly wasn't anything like home."

"Well, not for me, either," objected Hermione, who stared at Ron slowly shaking his head, as he finally revealed what he'd never wanted to say over all the years he'd been around Harry and the last member of their trio.

"'Mione, we - us Weasleys - we've _always _been poor, as long as I can remember. There's never been any extra money in our family. Oh, we had a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs - even if it was usually hand-me-downs for us younger kids - and food on the table. But again, there was never any guarantee that there'd always be second helpings for us all when we ate. Mum and Dad made sure we got enough, but they quit trying years ago to keep peace at the table over anything extra there. When there weren't any guests, they basically let us fight it out among ourselves, and we came up with a few simple rules: if you were fast enough to get it on your plate, it was yours, but you had to get it all down before you could try for anything else."

Recalling Ron's atrocious table manners in the past while dining at the Great Hall, Hermione's cheeks pinked in discomfort at the memories of her usual condescension regarding his frenzied eating, now that she knew the awkward reason for this. In the middle of her embarrassment, the witch had a sudden odd thought, which was then promptly expressed in spite of herself. "But, Ron, I've seen Fred, George, and Ginny eat at Hogwarts. They've never, er…"

"Acted like me?" supplied Ron, who allowed a wry smile to appear on his face, reassuring Hermione who'd momentarily wondered if she'd gone a bit too far. Chuckling, the young king informed his friend, "The twins learned years ago not to attract too much attention to themselves at the Gryffindor table, since this made it harder to pull off their pranks. As for little Gin-Gin…" Totally surprising Hermione, Ron now sniggered evilly to himself, to then perform something else that also caught unawares the witch.

Leaning forward in his chair, Ron held out his left hand towards Hermione, directing the astonished girl, "Look at the back there." At the same time, the red-haired boy used his right index finger to point at a specific spot in the center of the top of his left hand. Looking down with total bafflement, Hermione's eyes were drawn to something strange at where her attention had been directed, stamped on Ron's skin: a short, vertical row of three white dots. Glancing up as Ron now pulled his hands away while leaning back in his chair, Hermione saw her friend smirking to himself.

In a truly gleeful tone, Ron assured Hermione, "Ginny learned right off to act ladylike at the Gryffindor table during meals, but when she came home after her first year here - oh, it was just like old times, even with that horrible affair over Riddle's diary. On our first dinner with us all back at the Burrow, Mum cooked Ginny's favorite, which is fried chicken. I thought my little sister had forgotten how things were supposed to work, so when I saw my chance, I grabbed for the biggest drumstick on the platter before Ginny." There was a look of absolute pride upon Ron's face, as he then joyfully informed a dumbfounded Hermione. "She got me right with her fork, stabbing me hard enough to leave scars."


	17. Chapter 17

For the next few minutes, Ron Weasley benevolently watched Hermione Granger laugh so hard that she was making her armchair shake in her sheer mirth. The young man felt a tense part of himself relax at seeing how someone he cared for very much had taken the recent revelation of several of his personal secrets and privacies. Now that he'd laid the groundwork, it was time to go on and take the next step.

"It looks like I'm going to have to apologize to Harry again, anyway," casually remarked Ron, pretending to gaze off in the distance of the Greater Hall, but in reality keeping watch on Hermione out of the corner of his eye, which meant the king then saw how the other Gryffindor quickly brought herself back under control over that odd comment.

Turning his head in time to look directly into his friend's mystified face, accompanied by her equally puzzled inquiry, Ron now heard from Hermione, "What does Harry have to do with _your_ table manners? After all, he never ate like you, though he could put it away well enough."

Shaking his head, Ron replied to the confused witch. "It doesn't really have to do with food, 'Mione. What I meant, it's all part of me still being such an idiot, only about something else entirely. And now I know Harry didn't have a single clue, not just over what he had, or how I felt about it, which makes me feel even more like a complete berk, in addition to my envying his fame."

Trying to decipher that sudden rush of words, Hermione concentrated on the final perplexing statement, and in an attempt to give herself a hint on what exactly Ron was talking about, she tentatively said, "Well, you mentioned that Harry hates being famous."

Ron agreed with a serious nod. "Yeah, he showed that often enough, and I should have noticed, except I was also resenting something more about my best mate, and being just as stupid about it like I was over everything else!"

Hermione finally lost her patience at Ron, since he seemed unable to get to the point of what he was trying to say. "Ronald Bilius Weasley, what exactly were you so jealous about Harry James Potter?"

"His money," guiltily admitted that addressed monarch.

For several moments afterwards inside the Greater Hall, there was complete silence in the enormous room, until this was finally broken by an incredulous girl's loud, "His _what?_"

Sheepishly hunching himself deeper into his chair, the king with a flaming-red face matching his hair mumbled, "All right, all right, I'm an idiot, and I've always been over that-"

In the very middle of Ron's abject admission, he was interrupted by Hermione's scolding, "Ron, have you lost your mind? Harry hasn't ever shown any sign of having money to throw around! I mean, you've lived with him for years, and he's never had anything new, just like those horrible clothes he wore under his robe-"

This time it was Hermione who was cut off in the middle of her last angry statement. Speaking sharply, Ron ground out, "'Mione, that was due to those worthless Muggle relatives of his, who treated him like dirt! Besides, you're wrong. There was one time when Harry spent a lot of money, and I'm sorry to say, that instance, along with others, convinced me for the next couple of years that this bloke was rolling in it."

"Er, when?" came from a bewildered Hermione, staring at Ron looking absolutely mortified. The young monarch eventually met his friend's baffled gaze with his own shame-faced expression, and he explained at last.

"Remember, on our first trip on the Hogwarts Express coming here? We were all together in the train compartment, when the snacks trolley came by, and Harry wound up buying every single thing on it, sharing the treats with us. Plus, later on, there were his brand new Nimbus and Firebolt brooms."

Going over her own memories about what Ron had just mentioned, Hermione absently objected to her friend's last comment. "Those were gifts from Professor McGonagall and Sirius."

"Well, _I_ didn't know that!" retorted Ron. His aggravated glower sent towards his companion abruptly smoothed out into a blank expression, as an unexpected consideration evidently entered his mind. Speaking slowly as he worked out the details along the way, Ron pensively went on. "'Mione, I sometimes forget that you weren't born in the wizarding world, so you might not realize it's really a small place, and there are certain things you grow up knowing in your bones, just like everyone else around you. One of 'em's your family status, and while every once in a blue moon a witch or wizard can get away with false claims - like Riddle did with declaring himself to be a pureblood - it's a _lot_ harder to successfully lie about your family wealth. Now, the point is, when Harry was born, the Potters were very well-off, and that's an established fact."

As Hermione blinked over that surprising statement, the young man across from herself solemnly nodded in assurance, as he continued. "Harry's family wasn't the richest around - that might have been the Blacks, the Malfoys and some of the other houses - but the Potters are among the oldest names in the wizarding world, which makes them and their money very respected. And, well, when I wound up sharing a Chocolate Frog with the Boy-Who-Lived, who paid for it without a second thought, that's all it took for me to eventually get jealous about him and his bloody fame and money."

"Oh, Ron, you prat," sympathetically sighed Hermione. As she regarded the embarrassed young man in his chair, the witch saw the Weasley teenager's mood oddly brighten, as he in turn glanced back at his companion, a crooked smile of beginning relief appearing on his lips. Just as Ron's mouth opened to respond to that gentle rebuke, Hermione herself spoke first, as a stray thought was then expressed by the girl. "Ron, why didn't Harry ever know about his family's money?"

An expression of deep disgust promptly passed over Ron's features, as he growled a single word, "Dumbledore."

Hermione allowed herself to once more feel her bubbling inner fury about that named wizard, as she quickly came to the proper conclusion. "He kept quiet about it, as part of controlling Harry?"

Grimly nodding, Ron told her, "Unfortunately, it was even legal for him to do that, since he was Harry's magical guardian once our mate came to Hogwarts. The laws of the wizarding world give those entrusted with their charges' financial affairs a lot of leeway in handling them, but it's also part of our traditions that those responsible for these children usually tell them how their money's being held for them, including any investments, large withdrawals, or expenses. Since the penalties are really nasty if anyone's caught stealing or embezzling these funds, most guardians make sure to keep their charges fully informed, but like I said, it's tradition, not an actual rule. The young wizard or witch _can_ legally demand at any time an audit of their finances, but they have to _know_ they can do this in the first place, which Harry sure as hell didn't." Ron slumped back in his seat, to then dolefully add, "We all just assumed that he did, which was another instance of letting him down, not just over his money."

Hermione's sudden guilt about her own failures as Harry's friend was intermixed with equally strong astonishment at that clear and concise lecture from someone she'd so often had to help with his homework. Wanting to know more, the witch asked, "Does Harry have control over his money now? Or, since Dumbledore-" (Hermione said that specific name in a very bitter tone) "-is retiring, does the next Headmaster of Hogwarts become his guardian?"

"There's no point in that, 'Mione," Ron told his friend. "Since he'll come of age in a few months anyway as the head of a wizarding house, Harry can declare to the Ministry of Magic right now his desire to take control of his life, and request that he be granted the status of an emancipated minor." The young king dryly snorted, as he further commented, "Considering it's now the _Royal_ Ministry, the bureaucrats there will instantly sign off on our mate's request, if they know what's good for them."

Uneasily watching the sudden gleam in her companion's eyes at the pleasant prospect of riding roughshod over some narrow-minded paper pushers, Hermione tried to change the subject by inquiring, "Does this mean that Harry doesn't have to go back to his relatives next Hogwarts break?"

The look on the teenage boy's face was now true anger, as he furiously snapped, "No, not ever!" Seeing his friend recoil in her chair from his vehemence, Ron's mood abruptly altered into chagrin, as he apologized, "Sorry, Hermione. It's just that I totally detest the Dursleys over what they did to Harry, and now it looks like they might get off scot-free over everything."

"_What?_" burst from an incredulous witch staring at the dejected monarch slumping back into his chair.

Ron sighed, "I'm afraid so." Seeing that his companion was about to explode in her own anger, the young man hastily added, "It all has to do with the limits of my authority. I have sovereign powers over the wizarding world here, but Muggles don't fall under this, except for those who already know about us, such as family members of Muggleborn witches and wizards. Now, legal proceedings by the Ministry can be started against these specific people if they commit crimes against members of our society, which is what happened to Harry. However, when I directed the filing of charges against the Dursleys for child abuse, the Ministry's legal staff told me that there was the possibility of a successful defense by the barrister for that bloody family should it ever actually come to trial."

"What- what kind of defense could possibly made for how those _arseholes_ treated Harry?" snarled a very irate witch.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Ron couldn't resist pompously intoning, "Language, Hermione."

The scorching glare promptly sent towards him by the young woman made the red-haired king quickly mention, "It's all the fault of a certain wizard, who really should have the title of 'The Man Who Could Bugger Up Anything.' Yes, Dumbledore himself, _again,_ and his stupid Blood Wards."

"What?" Hermione frowned at an exasperated Ron grumpily staring at herself. "I did some research after the first time I was here," (the Hogwarts student then absently waved a hand around the Greater Hall) "and heard about the Blood Wards when the Headmaster mentioned them, but I don't see-"

"When you went through the castle library, you found out that exact spell was supposed to be solely used for hiding magical humans against their enemies, drawing upon their family ties of love, loyalty, and blood relationship to create a charmed protective shield that would deflect anyone else's searching spells or even a physical hunt, right, 'Mione?" finished an interrupting Ron.

Uncertainly, Hermione answered, "Well, yes."

Ron quietly groaned to himself, to then dolefully ask, "Did you find anything at all in your research about what might happen if the majority of the people inside the Blood Wards were _Muggles?_"

Opening her mouth to answer, Hermione abruptly closed this, as she thought hard for several moments, only to slowly shake her head in dawning worry. Sympathetically watching her, Ron then gently asked another lengthy question: "Also, when you were studying this, was it written down anywhere concerning Blood Wards, about the chance of those Muggles' continuous dislike of their wizarding nephew somehow interacting for years with a hateful spirit inside this child's head, which was the last remnant of a wizard who'd already killed off his own family, and had an excellent motive to do the same to Harry Potter?"

"Oh, no," moaned Hermione, as she dejectedly clapped her hands over her eyes. A moment later, she abruptly dropped her hands down into her lap, as the witch anxiously gazed at Ron sadly watching her. "Did that really happen?"

The man gave an unhappy shrug before saying, "Now that Harry's horcrux is gone, there's just no way to tell right off. You'd need to thoroughly examine the Dursleys' memories, going back years, and those pillocks would hardly be willing to allow any witch or wizard to do that! Not to mention that even if they did, you still might not find any conclusive evidence one way or another. No, 'Mione, if it ever came to trial, the Dursleys could successfully argue the possibility they'd been eventually influenced to hate Harry enough to treat him like they did. After all, they didn't start abusing him right away. There's also the point that any competent barrister would then suggest it was Dumbledore's fault in the first place for not fully considering the consequences of his actions."

Slumping back in her seat, Hermione beseeched of her friend, "So, nobody pays for what Harry went through?"

In his own chair, Ron resolutely shook his head, as he growled, "That was a big reason why I forced that blithering idiotic wizard to resign from all his positions and titles, and get shoved into a retirement that's as humble and dull as I can make it. As for the Dursleys…" Trailing off, the young man slowly allowed a smile of pure evil to appear on his face.

As a fascinated Hermione listened to her companion's next words, she also saw Ron count off on his fingers: "One, those berks are obsessed with status. Two, they're greedy. And three, that bloody family is terrified of being seen as different from their neighbors. Well, guess what? I'm going to target _all_ of that a couple of days from now."

Giving his startled audience a frankly sinister look, the monarch then cackled, "Yes, indeed. On the next Sunday, when everyone's home and can watch, the most biggest, blackest, and shiniest possible rental limousine will pull up in front of the Dursley house, and three people will get out. Me, Harry, and you, 'Mione, if you want."

Caught up in Ron's joyous description of the forthcoming prospect, Hermione unthinkingly nodded at once, causing her friend to beam at the girl, as he bubblingly continued, "Well, I think Harry should be the one to kick down the front door, which will be charmed to fall right over and then be shoved back up in place by me when we all walk in. _That_ should attract the neighbors' attention, though another spell should keep anyone from coming nearer or calling the police, despite all the noise that'll happen next."

"Noise?" asked a puzzled Hermione.

"Not from the Dursleys, of course. Nope, they'll be dragged straight from their tea, frozen solid by our Petrificus Totalus spells, and dropped onto the nearest couch, where they'll be forced to listen to us. First, Harry gets to tell them off for everything they did to him for the last ten years or so. When our mate has all that out of his system, he'll finish by letting those idiots know exactly how rich he's now, and the Dursleys are never, ever going to see a single bent penny of it for the rest of their lives."

Taking a necessary breath, Ron gleefully smirked at a rapt Hermione. "Then, it'll be my turn. I'll take great pleasure in explaining to those Muggles that their despised nephew is the best friend of a genuine king, who doesn't like them at all. If only they'd treated Harry Potter like an actual, loved member of their family, the Dursleys would have been honored and praised to the skies by the entire wizarding world for protecting the Boy-Who-Lived and turning him into a fine young man, which he still managed to be even with all their abuse."

Again, Ron paused to take another breath, this time angrily drawing it in to once more growl, "They'll also learn that the whole point of Harry being sent to live with them no longer applies, now that the Dark Lord who wanted to kill their nephew is dead. Not that those three Muggles should start celebrating, since they just got thousands of wizards and witches totally brassed off at them for giving Harry such a horrible life at their house! Oh, by the way, despite what the old man with the long beard and the gaudy robe told them before, there are no longer any more hiding wards around their home, so any one of us freaks who wants to find the Dursleys can do this by casting the most simple magic spell, which any wizarding child can easily pull off."

Sardonically showing his teeth in a menacing grin at a grimly-approving Hermione, Ron fiercely added, "You'll be free to join in anytime after that, 'Mione. I'm sure you can come up with some really choice insults to call those berks, not to mention that it'd be a really good idea for them to leave the whole bloody country as fast as possible. It's true that I'd thoroughly disapprove of any of my subjects attacking a non-magical family, no matter what they'd done, and the full force of the law would be used to punish whoever did this crime. Still, it has to be admitted that this probably wouldn't be all that much consolation to any likely survivors."

"I believe I can reasonably convey that exact message to the Dursleys in the most effective way possible by myself, Ron," purred the witch, a pitiless expression upon her features, as she already started planning in her head an incisive speech to three loathsome persons. A moment later, Hermione lifted an inquiring eyebrow, as this stern statement from her was received by a young king actually beginning to…snigger.

"Oh, I'm sure you can, Hermione," gasped Ron through his momentary attack of the giggles. "But Fred and George would be _so_ disappointed over missing their own chance to show the Dursleys what the twins really think of them, when the three of us leave that house forever!"

A look of alarm immediately appeared on the girl's face as soon as she heard the names of those supreme pranksters of the Weasley family. "What'd you _do,_ Ron?" warily demanded Hermione.

Leaning back in his chair, with a very smug smile now sent towards a concerned young woman, Ron chortled, "Relax, 'Mione. I was assured by those two lunatics when I told them what I was planning, that even without magic, you can still pull off some really impressive, permanent, non-lethal, humiliating effects with fireworks, smoke bombs, and glow-in-the-dark indelible ink in various colors and smells! Let's just say, what happens after our departure will be truly unforgettable for both the Dursleys and every one of their untouched neighbors within a couple of blocks beholding my brothers' latest masterpiece. Nobody is ever going to obliviate _those _memories."


	18. Chapter 18

After one last happy sigh, Hermione ended her pleased musing about what was going to happen to a presently unmindful abhorrent family, who frankly deserved every bit of their approaching punishment. She looked over at where a grinning Ron was observing her while luxuriating in his own good mood, and while returned his smile, the witch now asked a question that had suddenly occurred to herself. "What's Harry going to do then? Will he be staying with your family at the Burrow?"

"Mum and Dad wouldn't mind that at all, Hermione, and they'll probably invite him there right away," good-naturedly answered Ron. "Whether he stays there or not, that all depends on Sirius."

"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed. Blinking in surprise, she then admitted a bit sheepishly, "I'd forgotten all about Harry's godfather! Have you heard from him?"

The young king replied in a very satisfied voice, "Better than that, 'Mione. During my visit to the Ministry, I issued a royal pardon for Sirius Black, declaring him innocent of all crimes, and sent word about this to him. I got an owl from Padfoot a few hours later, declaring himself to be absolutely gobsmacked and agreeing to show up from wherever he's been hiding. Tomorrow, I'll meet him and then we'll both go to the emergency Wizengamot assembly I ordered. There, Sirius will have to testify under Veritaserum about everything, but he's actually looking forward to this. He gets to rub everyone's nose into their mistake over throwing him into Azkaban, plus Lord Black has been waiting for _years_ to publicly express at length his opinions to the entire Wizengamot about them and their idiotic former leader."

Hermione looked a bit askance at a snickering Ron contemplating to himself exactly what their friend's godfather was going to loudly deliver to a bunch of cringing wizards knowing they were going to be paying for the rest of their lives over sending an innocent man to prison. An obscenity-laden diatribe was the very least the Wizengamot could expect from a past Marauder that had for the last fifteen years brooded about the complete injustice done to him, and who now had the funds, power, and sheer vindictiveness to make totally miserable the existence of every one of those people complicit in this.

After Ron had expressed his gleeful thoughts about their older friend's new career, Hermione further glowered at the chuckling monarch. Unabashed, Ron pointed out, "'Mione, everybody needs a hobby, and Sirius deserves some fun. Besides, he'll probably take a break from tormenting his enemies when Harry's with him during school vacations. They'll have the time of their lives together, I'm sure."

Allowing a reluctant smile to cross her lips, Hermione wondered, "Will they be staying at Grimmauld Place? Now that Dumbledore can't manipulate us to keep from seeing each other outside Hogwarts, I'd like my parents to meet Harry and Sirius."

Ron looked pensive for a moment, until he replied, "Probably not. Sirius still hates that house, and Harry didn't care for it, either. Not that it matters, anyway. In all the time he was in Azkaban, Sirius never lost his money, since the goblins wouldn't let the Ministry confiscate his family vault without a proper trial for Lord Black. So, he can buy a dozen homes at once, for every month in the year, each better than that gloomy dump. Still, I'll tell him what you said, and I'm positive Harry and Sirius would be glad to meet your folks." As Ron paused in his answer, a wistful look flashed over his features, before he cautiously tried, "Er, I don't suppose-"

Immediately guessing what her friend was about to say, Hermione delightedly exclaimed, "Oh, Ron, of course you can come too!" as she then impulsively leaned forward to pat his knee several times. Sitting back in her chair, the witch felt her lips twitch at seeing the king's face faintly blush at this unexpected touch from the young woman, until a sudden thought distracted herself. A now-doubtful Hermione asked, "Um, will you have the time? I should think you'll be rather busy-"

"I'll _make_ time if I have to, 'Mione!" fiercely said Ron. Looking across the space separating him from the rather taken-aback person sitting there, the teenager hastily toned down his next statement. "I really do want to meet your parents. Just tell me when and where, and I'll be there, all right?"

A somewhat bemused Hermione slowly nodded in acceptance of that fervent declaration, wondering why this seemed so important to Ron. Decided to think further about this later, the witch cleared her throat, and casting about for another, safer topic, she commented, "We'll be glad to have you, and the others, too. If nothing else, Sirius can personally tell us what he did after the last time we saw him, flying off on Buckbeak."

Clearly relieved about this change in their conversation, Ron eagerly acknowledged this, "His note didn't say anything about that, but it'll be interesting to find out. It also couldn't hurt to ask Sirius what his plans are now, after he learns about Harry becoming emancipated. I don't think our mate will go off to live on his own, but when Harry stays with Sirius, it'd be a good idea for Padfoot to start teaching his godson on how to be Lord Potter."

Hermione's face lit up in obvious approval. She excitedly said, "That's a truly fantastic idea, Ron! It'd benefit them both, with Harry finally learning about the wizarding world from someone who really understands this society from top to bottom, and Sirius having the chance to get to know Harry better without all the fuss and partings in their lives before." The young woman momentarily looked thoughtful, as she quietly spoke to herself, "I wonder if I could sit in on some of the lessons… There are a lot of things I'm curious about-"

Chuckling, Ron told his suddenly-enthusiastic friend, "I don't think they'd mind, either of them. Just let me get a word in edgewise every once in a while, 'Mione, among all your questions."

"I don't ask that many questions!" indignantly huffed the witch at her smirking friend. A puzzled frown then developed on Hermione's face, as she peered at the young man sitting across from herself. "What do you mean, you're going to be there? What for? After all, you're a pureblood wizard, so you probably already know a lot of the information that Sirius is going to be passing on to Harry."

Grimacing, Ron glumly confessed, "Yeah, and I should've mentioned some of that stuff to Harry, if I'd actually bothered to think about this. It would've certainly helped him at times when he needed it." Sighing the teenager then confessed to a sympathetic listener, "But, no, the whole point of me being there is to ask Sirius for his advice."

A totally boggled Hermione stared at her friend, before managing to choke out, "You…want to ask Harry's godfather for advice? _Sirius Black?_ Listen, Ron, I like and trust him, but, er, you have to admit he's stubborn and headstrong and has a tendency to become fixated about things, much less having a mischievous streak a mile wide-!"

"I _know_ all that, Hermione!" snorted Ron. This young man then gave his concerned companion a sly look while muttering under his breath, "He'd agree with every word you just said, and then turn your hair purple…"

Meeting the witch's menacing glare over hearing the last, Ron hastily spoke up again. "The fact is, 'Mione, there are good reasons to pay attention to him, because just like you, I trust him. Sirius does know a lot about our society despite all the time he spent away from it in Azkaban, he doesn't have an axe to grind - well, except for the one he'd like to use on Dumbledore's neck - and most importantly, there's a particular topic I really need guidance on, and he's the best person I can think of to go for advice on this."

A confused Hermione started saying, "What on earth do you want to talk about with-" Abruptly cutting herself off, the pretty witch stared with incredulous horror at the mystified teenage boy sitting there, as she then groaned, "Please don't tell me you need advice on girls from Sirius!"

"_WHAT!_"

That aghast yelp resounded throughout the Greater Hall, as Ron Weasley at once levitated himself upwards an entire yard from his chair in his panicked leap, entirely without magic, to then come back down hard on his seat, as this dismayed young man stared with a brick-red face at a truly bewildered Hermione. Eventually, the king managed to stutter, "I- I- just wanted to ask him about how to take care of my money!"

For long moments, there was now absolute silence in the enormous room, as the two people there stared blankly at each other. Finally, sitting up straight in her chair, an extremely focused Hermione demanded in her single-minded determination, "Wait, what do you mean, _your_ money?"

His face slowly shifting into solid blandness, except for a sudden impish gleam in his eye, while gazing back at a young woman almost quivering in her dogged question for an actual explanation, Ron calmly answered in turn, "Well, since the Black family has been rich for centuries, they obviously know how to keep their money safe. So, it just makes sense to ask the latest Lord Black how a certain someone who's now a _lot_ richer than him should invest and otherwise properly protect his wealth."

Hermione's mouth soundlessly opened and closed for several moments in her sheer shock, until the which managed to squeak out, "_You?_"

"Me," nodded Ron in his best deadpan that he maintained for a surprising amount of time - at least ten seconds or so - before this speedily shifted into an ear-to-ear grin and then deep, lengthy belly-laughs at the amazed expression presently upon Hermione's countenance.

After a good minute, Ron finally got himself under control, helped along by observing the folded arms, the evil look, and most dangerous of all, the impatiently-tapping shoe of Hermione Granger in her chair awaiting a truly obligatory explanation. Wiping away a happy tear, the young king came out with a genial question that seemed to have nothing to do with their previous discussion. "'Mione, where did you think the wizarding world kept their money before there was a Gringotts Bank?"

A suspicious Hermione just glowered across the space between themselves at that male nincompoop clearly having all too much fun at her expense, but her very nature couldn't let that inquiry pass without some kind of grudging reply. "Well, back in the Middle Ages, I suppose they put their gold and other valuables somewhere safe in their manors or castles…" Trailing off in her answer, the witch watched with wide eyes as Ron now started to nonchalantly glance around the Greater Hall of Hogwarts Castle, which caused Hermione to finish by weakly saying in absolute incredulity: "_Here?_"

Cheerfully shrugging his shoulders, Ron explained to his astonished friend, "Well, where else would the Founders keep the money they had left after building Hogwarts? _They_ knew how secure this place was, and later on, so did the rest of the staff and the students at the school. That led to other vaults being built down there-" In the middle of that statement, Ron pointed down and to the left at a certain spot on the room's floor, with Hermione's gaze promptly following this while also listening to the next words. "-and whenever a new year at Hogwarts started, the classes came in their groups together either overland or by sea while bringing along their money and family treasures for safe storage here. That lasted for centuries, until the goblins built their bank in Diagon Alley and offered both good terms and easier access to any wizard or witch depositing their funds there. At the very least, it meant not having to apparate, fly by broomstick, or otherwise go all the way to Scotland just for some quick cash."

Caught up in the story, Hermione asked, "So, everyone moved their money to Gringotts?"

"Oh, not everyone, and not right away, 'Mione," corrected Ron. "It took even more centuries for the most conservative wizards to trust the goblins enough to put their money into those little buggers' hands, and the really prudent - or paranoid, your choice - wizards never transferred it _all._ No, a lot was still left here, and over the years, when these treasure owners died off in wizarding wars, plagues, disasters, and the like, without making out a will or even telling anyone, it was impossible for the vault contents to be collected by the heirs, who might not have known about their legacies in the first place."

A faint frown wrinkling her forehead, Hermione pointed out, "I haven't studied all that much wizarding law, but if it's anything like the non-magical world, wouldn't that stuff have then gone to the government? To the Wizengamot or the Ministry of Magic?"

"The proper term you're looking for to describe this state of affairs is 'intestate'," Ron told Hermione, as he went on. "Yeah, the money should have gone to the authorities - if Hogwarts had ever bothered telling anybody what was buried in her cellars."

Chuckling at his friend's sudden look of pure astonishment over that surprising bit of news, the young king momentarily became a bit more solemn when delivering his next words. "That money and other valuables was put in Hogwarts' care by the owners for themselves and their descendants, and the castle takes her guardianship duties very seriously, Hermione. She would have willingly handed over what's in the vaults below to the proper heirs, but it was _these_ people's responsibility to know enough to come here and ask for their property. However, since nobody's remembered this for the last few centuries, Hogwarts would have simply gone on protecting those assets for the rest of eternity, if necessary. Or, until somebody came along that had the legitimate authority to have these riches transferred into their custody."

A mischievous grin then appeared on Ron's face, as he negligently waved his right hand, which instantly produced around the pair of young people in their seats, an immense amount of genuine treasure filling up the entire room!

Her mouth falling open, Hermione gaped at what was now piled up in head-high heaps a few yards away to the sides of and also beyond her chair, behind the monarch smirking at the oblivious young woman, who had eyes only for those plentiful priceless objects that were presently resting nearby on the floor of the Greater Hall. There, the bright gleam of gold and silver shone in virtually every form of these elements: coins, ingots, ornaments, and plate, to say the very least. Jewels of all sizes, colors, and brilliance glittered and flashed in the light of the Greater Hall, either on their own or decorating the precious metals mentioned before. Massive rolls of purest silk and other valuable cloths made up the bases of the treasure mounds, and carefully placed upon these among the lesser riches were scores of what the wizarding world _really_ cherished: magical family heirlooms.

Hermione's attention was naturally drawn to at once by the numerous ancient tomes and grimoires, each hand-lettered in graceful calligraphy and possessing inside these volumes generations of wizarding knowledge. The witch's fingers promptly itched to open these books and learn everything possible they could teach herself. Observing the young woman before him, as her face showed actual lust, Ron hastily clapped a discreet hand over his mouth before his beginning guffaws could escape, though his eyes gleamed with intense amusement due to Hermione completely ignoring all the rest of the costly possessions there that practically anybody else would have been fascinated by: the weapons, magical devices, rare potion ingredients, works of art, and everything else totaling an inestimable value.

At last, feeling enough was enough, Ron removed his hand from his mouth, to again wave it in a casual gesture that caused every speck of treasure to immediately vanish as rapidly as it had appeared in the first place. Blinking at the abrupt departure of what had been mesmerizing herself, Hermione sagged back in her chair, letting out an enormous whoosh of breath, as she then stared blankly ahead for a few moments. Finally, the witch's attention came back to the once-more empty throne room, as she caught the eye of the red-haired man leaning back in his own chair and giving her a faint smile. Without actually thinking of how it might sound, Hermione blurted out, "Ron, is all _that_ yours?"

"Oh, no," Ron firmly denied, including an equally firm headshake with that statement, as he added, "Just most of it, what doesn't belong to anyone else now. Those treasures that have a clear heir for these things, I'll turn them over to the right people. The remaining stuff is a bit tricky, since that involves multiple heirs or those with equal claims to the same items. It'll probably wind up with me dividing the money and other funds among everyone in those cases, and putting the one-of-a-kind objects into the hands of the various heads of the wizarding families, saying it's up to _them_ to decide who gets what."

The young king then rolled his eyes upwards in utter exasperation, darkly muttering to himself, "Considering that people in our world can argue for years about who deserves their dearly-departed Aunt Caroline's gravy boat, I think that my loyal subjects will be having family feuds over this for the next century or so."

Hermione unexpectedly giggled at seeing Ron's dour face as he delivered that last sardonic comment. She continued smiling at him, as he looked over in surprise at hearing her laughter, particularly when this man's features shifted into a wry grin of his own sent towards the pleased witch. The two teenagers continued sharing an amused glance between themselves, until they kept on examining each other, and these traded looks now slowly changed into steady, considering stares for each. These individuals now began to reflect upon their time together in this place ever since they'd come here, leaving behind the rest of Hogwarts' residents at their meal.

For Hermione, she slowly came to the startled realization that for the first time in her young life, she'd been having a civilized, _adult_ discussion with someone her own age. Not of being told what to do or how to act by a grown-up, or carrying on a conversation about childish things with another student. Even during the more serious times over the last year or so, when she'd had to confer with Harry and Ron about the latest crisis in the castle, that had usually wound up with arguments and thrashing out between themselves over what actions to be taken by the trio (accompanied with, the witch guiltily admitted to herself, all too often a lecture delivered by the young girl), these events had still occasionally seemed to be more than a bit immature to Hermione.

The fact was that Hermione had began to wonder just when her mind was going to develop, just as her body recently had. That latter event had been a normal part of growing up, but Hermione really didn't think possessing the ability to effortlessly get into trouble while in the presence of Harry Potter and Ron Weasley was all _that _impressive. No, she needed to mentally stretch herself, to meet someone as an equal, with this person actually interested in what she thought, felt, and said.

Someone like that other Gryffindor in his chair over there, who'd incredibly changed over the last few days from a happy-go-lucky boy into a more serious young man, who right this instant was looking at her with a really, really intense stare that was making her stomach feel absolutely strange…


	19. Chapter 19

"Hermione, could you stand up, please?"

The startled young woman blinked in surprise at what had just been asked of herself. Gazing back into Ron's face that had now changed into a slightly nervous expression, Hermione felt a definite flash of inner regret that their conversation now seemed to have come to an end. She'd been really enjoying it all, the entire discussion between themselves, but at this moment, it looked to at last be over, with them leaving this place to rejoin the others in the castle. And after that, what then?

Most likely, the witch would go back to her studies and the rest of her normal life at Hogwarts. Which included Harry, of course. _He_ might finally have a chance for his own ordinary existence of schoolwork, Quidditch games, and then looking forward to living in his new home with a godfather that truly considered this young man to be part of their small family. No Boy-Who-Lived idiocy, no Dursleys, no Voldemort, no Death Eaters, no prophecy hanging over his head…

*About bloody time, too,* Hermione tartly commented inside her mind concerning her green-eyed friend.

As for Ron… No, she couldn't call him that anymore, not outside this room. He was His Royal Majesty Ronald Weasley, King Ronald the First, monarch of the wizarding world, having the ultimate rank in their society, and he'd probably never have the chance to speak to her again. After all, that red-haired teenager would be busy for the rest of his life running the entire magical country and its government. Undoubtedly without ever once more encountering a single subject of his, a bushy-haired girl who hadn't yet decided in what direction to take her education, which would result in Hermione Granger's choice of profession.

Just as this young woman was sadly coming to that conclusion, a very uneasy clearing of someone's throat reached her ears, along with Hermione also noticing Ron's frankly panicky expression while he shifted in his own chair, as this youth anxiously hinted, "Er, 'Mione?"

Giving a last melancholy smile to the waiting friend across there, who she'd soon be parting from forever, Hermione gracefully rose to her feet from the armchair she'd been occupying in the middle of the Greater Hall, watching as Ron (well, as long as she was here, she'd still call him that!) also clumsily got up from his own place, promptly causing his sword scabbard on his left hip to then swing inwards to smartly rap the young man on the side of his left leg. His ears immediately turning bright red, Ron muttered to himself, "Bugger," right before making a quick, jerky wave of his hand that caused both chairs to instantly vanish into thin air.

Her lips twitching in an effort to stop a sudden smile from appearing over that unexpected comical event, Hermione now watched Ron take a deep breath, absently reach up to shove his crown into a more comfortable position, and then apprehensively regard herself. Beginning to wonder what on earth was going on, Hermione then heard her companion hurriedly blurt out something that the witch truly hadn't anticipated.

"'Mione - Hermione! - could you, er, look around in this room, and see if you can spot anything different from the last time you were here?"

Her mouth dropping open in sheer astonishment at that totally incongruous query, Hermione bewilderedly stared at the man standing there and giving her such a beseeching look that showed he actually meant this odd question to be taken seriously. Off the top of her head, Hermione pointed out the first thing that came to mind, "Well, we're the only ones here, instead of having the whole castle with us before."

Now sending his own incredulous stare at the bemused young woman before him, who wasn't following what he'd so carefully planned, Ron hastily swallowed his beginning blistering words, to instead choke out in a somewhat irked tone, "No! I meant the room itself, the entire place and everything belonging in it!"

Deciding the quickest way to find out what the bloody hell this was all about was to simply obey Ron, Hermione looked past her annoyed friend towards the rear section of the enormous room, and then she slowly spun on her shoes in a half-circle, stopping when her back was turned to Ron. During all this, a growing-peeved Hermione was intently examining everything around herself, which included the magnificent surroundings of the Greater Hall. As she carefully studied the floor, walls, ceiling, and the decorations of these castle structures, including the glorious stained glass window now in front of herself, the witch started to slowly frown in genuine puzzlement.

The simple fact was that she just couldn't find anything different. Hermione began to have the sneaking suspicion that Ron was in some way having her on, for whatever reasons of his, as she maintained her gaze at the splendid rose window making up most of the near wall. This and all other immense circular windows built in that particularly fine architectural style were usually described by that botanical term due to the intricate stone traceries containing within these inner window ribs upwards to thousands of pieces of stained glass, and radiating outwards from the center of the window in such a manner as to resemble the uniform petals of a flower.

However, Hogwarts' rose window was exactly that, being built from a multitude of fragile glass panels in all possible tints of the color red that had been brilliantly combined together to form a truly marvelous image of a single immense rose. As Hermione continue to watch, a cloud outside must have passed across the face of the sun, causing the bright scarlet glow of the last few minutes sent into the room and upon the thrones below to subtly shift into a darker radiance that resembled the more natural shades of this aromatic blossom.

Years ago, even before coming to Hogwarts, Hermione had been taken by her parents on a quick tour of France, and one of the highlights of this trip had been a visit to Strasbourg Cathedral. Back then, the little girl had been transfixed by this church's wonderful rose window created centuries before, and Hogwarts Castle's own masterpiece was fully the equal of that superb French work of art. In the Greater Hall, Hermione was momentarily distracted by speculating if this room would be open in the future to the castle's residents. It would be a nice extra-credit assignment to do some research in order to discover exactly who'd designed and built that spectacular rose window. Could it go back to the Founders themselves? If so, which one of them had been respon-

Hermione's thoughts abruptly screeched to a complete halt.

The young woman then slowly dropped her gaze, to then stare in utter shock at the pair of thrones placed side-by-side upon their platform below the rose window.

On the witch's previous visit to the Greater Hall, along with the entire population of Hogwarts, King Ronald the First had greeted them all while sitting on his throne. That ornate golden chair had at that time been the only one of its kind there, magnificently resting on the raised area in solitary splendor.

Now, there were _two_ of them.

Standing motionless in the room during her daze, Hermione then felt a soft breath upon the back of her head, and she promptly spun around, to then stare right into something extremely peculiar that she'd grown to know very well during her time at this magical school in Scotland, all due to one of her friends' lazy habits.

Over the years at Hogwarts, instead of getting up early in the morning with Harry and the others at the Gryffindor boys' dorm, a certain member of the Weasley family always preferred to spend a few more precious minutes dozing in his bed before breakfast. Frequently, a half-asleep Ron nearly late for the first meal of the day had to rush his dressing, usually pulling on his robes and then knotting his school tie, all while blearily staring in the castle bathroom mirror. This sloppy securing action tended to result in that tie holding itself together at its top by an entwined lump of cloth, whose topographical contours often resembled something done by M.C. Escher after toking a really humongous dobie.

Hermione slowly lifted her gaze past one of Ron's more spectacular knots, to look up directly into the worried face of the teenage boy presently dressed in his familiar, rumpled school robes and standing right before herself, the tips of their shoes nearly touching. An extremely apprehensive expression was now plastered upon the face of the person having his shaggy red hair freely falling down his forehead, no longer confined by the currently-missing crown that had previously been keeping his coiffure in check.

After several moments of absolute silence in the vast room while the pair of young people carefully watched each other, Hermione spoke first, delivering in a very calm and very dangerous tone, "Ronald Bilius Weasley, why are there two thrones behind me?"

Summoning up every single scrap of his courage, an anxious youth tried to keep his own voice as steady as possible in his answer. "Because one of them is for you, Hermione, if you want it."

Once more, there was total quiet in the Greater Hall, until Hermione started speaking again, this time in an eerie, far-away monotone, all while now blankly staring past an increasingly concerned Ron. "When anybody asked - and they _did_ ask - I always lied about it, because it's too bloody embarrassing. But now, fate itself is conspiring against me. I told people that my first name comes from a Shakespeare play, and now I have the chance to actually _be_ Queen Hermione!"

A rather wild look then crept into the young woman's eyes, as she bitingly continued her tale. "The fact is, that's total balls. The real story goes that when my mum and dad went on their first date, he took her to a revival movie theater, where they saw an old film, and they really liked it. So much, that they soon got their own videotape of it, and watched it together as often as possible. Later on, when mum was pregnant with me and they were discussing baby names for their little boy or girl, one of them - they wouldn't ever tell me who - came up with naming me after an actress in that movie. I could have been called Leslie Granger, but no, they were instead charmed enough by the 1960's MGM musical 'Gigi' to name me after Hermione Gingold!"

An alarmed Ron was trying to keep up with Hermione's rushed story, until he was abruptly distracted by a small, hard fist that fiercely punched him right in the middle of his stomach, causing the king's breath to instantly whoosh forth from his lungs. Ron then painfully wrapped his arms around himself and bent over, gasping for air, as he bewilderedly peered past the red hair falling over his face, blinking away sudden tears. The young man in his agony watched the other teenager spin around and savagely stomp a few steps away. Stopping dead in her tracks then, Hermione threw up her hands in absolute aggravation. That didn't seem to be enough to sufficiently express her present emotions, as she now added an ear-splitting scream of pure exasperation:

"EEEEEEEEE!"

The echoes of that infuriated yell were still ringing throughout the Greater Hall, when Hermione again turned around, quick as a wink, to point a wrathfully quivering forefinger at the confused royal personage still in his bowing position. Ron was then blasted by a shrill screech from the girl several yards away, whose voice still battered at his ears as she loudly demanded, "_Are you bloody insane?_ We're both not even sixteen years old yet, and in spite of that, you're asking me to marry you?"

Hastily gulping for enough air to talk, Ron tried to head off the impending disaster of all his hopes and plans, as he frantically blurted out, "No, not yet! I just wanted you to think over the possibility of that, giving you enough time to make up your mind, before I actually ask you!"

Hermione's right arm with the extended index finger that had been irately directed at Ron now fell limply to her side, as the girl gaped at the other person from herself wincing as he straightened up. Her face a mask of utter disbelief, Hermione then whispered, "Oh, my god, you're absolutely serious, aren't you?"

Absently rubbing his aching stomach, Ron also at the same time vigorously nodded his head in assent, which resulted in an entirely unexpected reaction from his friend.

Hermione Granger instantly burst into tears.

Without even thinking about it, Ron strode forward until he stopped short in front of Hermione, and then he put his arms around the witch in a firm hug. That young woman didn't resist this at all; instead, she leaned her head forward onto Ron's chest, pressing her body against his robes, while beginning to sob out loud, "Wh- Why _me?_ I'm just the bookworm with uncontrollable hair, and-"

Once again, Ron followed his instincts and did exactly the right thing. Letting go of his embracing right arm from around Hermione, the man brought that arm back and then between their bodies, to slip his cupped hand under his friend's chin, gently lifting her head while simultaneously dipping his own head down towards her tear-stained features, giving a startled Hermione a very affectionate kiss.

However, while Ron's instincts were spot-on, his kissing technique definitely needed a little work, what with a distinct lack of practice for that teenage boy. True, his mouth eventually met that of his partner, but along the way, their noses scraped alongside each other a bit more robustly than absolutely necessary, and during the grand finale, Ron overestimated by a trifle the amount of force needed to bring their heads together, causing something of a minor collision that painfully mashed their lips together against the front teeth of both of these young people.

Neither of them cared the slightest.

* * *

Several minutes later, Ron and Hermione were seated together on a small couch that the monarch had waved into existence inside the Greater Hall, in front of the platform holding the double ornate chairs. This couch was the perfect size for the pair, having only a two-person capacity that both currently found quite satisfactory. Ron was contently sitting up straight against the backrest, looking ahead down to the far end of the throne room, while Hermione was curled up against his side, resting her head on his shoulder, as the couple continued to hold each other's hands.

The blissful king's happy reverie was instantly extinguished at that exact moment due to hearing Hermione's thoughtful voice, as she then shrewdly mused out loud her judgment about the recent events that had just taken place here. "Ron, you planned everything, didn't you? Setting all this up, us coming here, and then talking about Harry when in reality you were showing to me how much you've changed. Even going so far as to prove you had enough money now, and also saying you wanted to meet my parents!"

Ron couldn't move a single muscle. Sitting in his frozen position, the aghast young man felt beads of horrified sweat pop out upon his brow, as he stared ahead for long seconds, desperately trying to come up with the best thing to say to the girl next to himself. A young lady whose hands with their very sharp fingernails were right now all too near his unprotected crotch beneath his school robes. Finally, his royal majesty groaned out hollowly in absolute defeat, "Er, yes."

"Oh. Well, that's all right, then."

This tranquil comment managed to bring life back into Ron's body, as his face tilted down to incredulously stare at the top of Hermione's own head still placidly resting against his upper arm. Despite himself, the king allowed a truly astonished question to escape from his lips, "You don't _mind?_"

Again, the witch's tone was unruffled, as she in turn inquired, "Have you ever known me to refrain from thoroughly expressing my opinions to both you and Harry over your latest harebrained scheme when I _did_ mind?"

And again, Ron Weasley eventually figured out that absolute honesty was his only protection from such a dangerous question. "Er, no."

An approving squeeze of his hands was made by Hermione, who next twisted her neck to lift up her face from his shoulder, peering into Ron's wary features from only a few inches away. The witch's own expression was wholly intent, as she stared right into his eyes, and firmly demanded, "Ron, I still want to know the answer: Why _me?_"

Not shifting his steady gaze at all from Hermione's rapt eyes, Ron answered at once, "Because I don't _want_ anyone else. Nobody for me but the girl I've known for years, who knew me when I was just plain Ron Weasley, and still liked me. Who'll always tell me what she really thinks of me, just as she's done for the last four years and will do for the next hundred. Who'll be the smartest witch to ever graduate from Hogwarts and then go on to share the biggest job around with someone who really can use her help in ruling the whole wizarding world without being driven absolutely spare by those bloody pillocks during this. I need you, Hermione. Please, stay with me."

Her features now absolutely blank over hearing all this, Hermione then rested her head back upon Ron's shoulder, and keeping her gaze fixed upon the floor of the Greater Hall, she eventually whispered, "I'll have to think it over, and get back to you."

"Uh, _what_?" was helplessly gurgled by Ron not expecting that at all, as he stared in sheer shock at Hermione still intently examining her shoes.

"Yes," as Hermione's head rubbed against Ron's arm when she slowly nodded, all while continuing to say, "After all, my answer will naturally require an extensive amount of research, with proper graphs and charts and itemized footnotes-"

It was only at that point when poor Ron finally noticed how Hermione's body was beginning to shake, just before she burst into joyous laughter and then howled louder in her mirth at slyly looking up into Ron's bewildered face, until this relieved young king also begin to laugh at the top of his own lungs at Hermione's cunning revenge against his recent manipulations.

Elsewhere, the consciousness of the entity known as Hogwarts Castle was experiencing her own version of absolute delight, as she continued to eavesdrop upon two young people together entering their lifetime compact. After basking in her enjoyment for a few minutes, the castle's attention was then brought back to the couple embracing in the Greater Hall, as a young girl's voice then asked a very concerned question:

"Ron, what about Harry?"

There was a pause as several seconds went by, until a stern male voice then firmly replied:

"He can go off and find his own Hermione. I've got mine."


	20. Chapter 20

_Twenty-five years later:_

On its own, the wide smile presently upon the face of the middle-aged wizard at the inside left front corner table of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour would have ordinarily been more than sufficient to successfully disguise himself from every one of this man's former pupils at Hogwarts Castle. After all, any student who'd somehow survived his potions classes would have instantly dismissed the very idea that Severus Snape would ever be seen in a genuine good mood.

Furthermore, his past acquaintances unfortunate enough to have shared his company at any point decades earlier would have deemed it utterly inconceivable that this supremely bad-tempered teacher would someday be found thoroughly enjoying himself by consuming one of the shop's sublime creations. Nevertheless, a chuckling Snape was at this very moment putting down his copy of today's Daily Prophet on the table and then picking up his spoon, at once using this cutlery to bring to his mouth a heaping quantity of frozen goodness, blissfully closing his eyes at the sudden burst of delicious flavors upon his tongue.

No one else in the busy ice cream parlour paid any attention whatsoever to the mature, bald man with the weathered and tanned face in his muted gray-green robes obviously giving himself a treat. These other wizards and witches of all ages there were genially preoccupied with their own orders and affairs, a happy frame of mind shared with virtually all of the shoppers and other pedestrians passing by outside in Diagon Alley.

With good reason. For one, it was a pleasant, sunny spring day, rare enough in England, that insisted the fine weather be properly appreciated by taking a relaxed stroll outdoors. Just as welcome was today's joyous news, with this being passed on and commented upon with each other among those magical humans sauntering along in the British wizarding world's business and shopping district.

As he dropped his licked-clean spoon into the empty ice-cream bowl, Severus Snape idly turned over his newspaper from the minor story on the back page, to then show the main photograph on the front, where a beaming King Ronald and Queen Hermione were continuously announcing the birth of their first grandchild. Snape benevolently eyed the happy pair in the animated picture, on an impulsive whim trying to remember exactly how these younger people had looked like thirty years before, on the occasion of their first day in his potions class.

A very wry twist of the wizard's lips indicated his total lack of success at finding that specific memory. No doubt because back then he'd been otherwise obsessed with one other specific child sitting there and regarding with barely-concealed alarm the menacing, black-robed, sneering wizard with long, greasy hair making his dramatic entrance into the classroom. To wit, one Harry James Potter.

Rolling his eyes in abrupt exasperation at once more remembering all those subsequent years when he'd been such a bloody fool, Snape got to his feet from his chair, and he picked up his newspaper, folding it in half and tucking it under his left arm. Carrying this small item along, the wizard left his table and the remains of his paid-for treat, exiting the ice-cream parlour and continuing his leisurely walk down Diagon Alley, as he became swept up by the crowd.

Maintaining his casual amble through the numerous witches and wizards around himself going about their daily business, Snape again began his mental game of trying to recognize from his previous tenure as Hogwarts' Potions Master those individuals who'd attended his classes. Eventually, after a half-hour's stroll, the score for him was two certainties and a possible. Which was about average, Snape cheerfully admitted to himself, taking into consideration that the wizarding world was still fairly small a quarter-century later on, and he'd taught a couple of hundred children while residing at the Scottish castle. Even the certain fact that these former students would have physically changed over the decades after leaving school had merely added a bit of valued spice to the challenge.

Not that this recognition would ever work the other way around. At his spot where he'd momentarily stepped into an unoccupied vestibule of a small shop to get out of the flow of the crowd, Snape glanced at the upper window of the open front door currently held ajar against the inner wall, and seeing his reflection there, this man ruefully rubbed the palm of his free hand over his hairless skull.

This was a trivial habit that Snape had developed after the first time he'd shaved his head several weeks into his lonely life at a desert island in the Outer Hebrides. Back then, his actions had simply been a petty revolt over his absurd coiffure which had been part of the derisive prank that King Ronald the First had inflicted upon Severus Snape just before banishing that wizard into solitary exile. Well, even though Hogwarts' former Potions Master still spent the next seventeen years attired in eye-searing robes and wearing clown makeup, he'd at least managed to cancel out one part of the prank, since his hair had never grown back to look as silly as it'd been before.

In fact, his hair had _never _grown back, period.

Not even nearly two decades afterwards, when the prank spell had finally come to an end. Considering the unfortunate results of his initial attempt to modify the hex, Snape had grimly endured the ensuing years of this, only to have another immense shock when he'd once more seen again his accustomed features without their concealing white layer of charmed facial cosmetics.

In the shop along Diagon Alley, Severus Snape sardonically eyed his reflection in the door window, and the deep wrinkles on this man's brown, leathery face shifted to show a subtly mocking expression. After all, what else could you expect as a result of taking long, contemplative walks in all weathers over the encompassing pathway he'd used his wand to build bordering the perimeter of his island? These strolls, at least several times a week and often more, had been done for various reasons: exercise, distraction from his potions work, and later on, simply to enjoy the glory of raw nature during his constitutionals.

Snape's face smoothed slightly in serenity, as he remembered what had taken him so long to appreciate, the ever-changing scenes of sea and sky seen beyond his island, and the pure, stark beauty of the small land mass itself. He glanced down at his subdued gray-green robes, with these somber colors matching the normal shades of the lichen-covered boulders making up the entirety of his domicile.

It was at that exact moment when Snape knew his short holiday was over. Time to go back to his island, and return to his craft. It had been pleasant enough to once more visit the wizarding world and mingle with other people, none of whom had the slightest inkling of the last living Death Eater in their midst. Still, Snape was now eager to return to the place where he'd found rare peace, and actual contentment in his life's work.

Firmly nodding to his reflection as this wizard made up his mind, he left the shop, and walking decisively, the man headed off towards his Diagon Alley lodgings, to pack up the reading materials, potions ingredients, and other purchased items collected during his brief stay. Once all that had been done, he'd be off, to what Severus Snape had never dreamed possible, his beloved home.

Passing by a trash can, Snape remembered the newspaper he was still carrying, and the wizard then impulsively dropped his copy of the Daily Prophet into this waste receptacle. Smiling faintly as he continued along, the ex-spy for two adversaries mentally reassured himself that he didn't really need this souvenir. It was more than sufficient to possess the hilarious memory of reading that extremely concise story at the very bottom of the back page, consisting of merely a few lines of a minor obituary.

From the rushed style of that death announcement, it seemed very likely that this had been quickly dashed off before its writer had gone on to work upon a much happier piece reporting how His Majesty's grandchild would be presented to his entire family and their closest friends at their palace estate sometime today. That meant the death of one Albus Dumbledore, his body found at his retirement cottage, had been condensed in the story of only a few lines, basically summing up this wizard's entire lifetime as a 'former Hogwarts Headmaster.'

Far more interesting to the reporter, and making up the majority of the obituary, was the account of how Dumbledore's companion, the phoenix known as Fawkes, had been missing from the cottage, with the only sign of the magnificent bird's presence being the immense mound of ashes upon the writing desk of the elderly wizard. Apparently, the death of his master had caused the fiery bird to permanently depart, and in the course of this leavetaking, a fire had started in the stack of paper on the desk that had been Dumbledore's memoirs, worked on in seclusion for decades by this man during his entire retirement. Sadly, nothing had survived of this potentially fascinating autobiography covering such events as Grindelwald, Voldemort, Harry Potter, and of course, somebody else. Save for one thing.

Among the ashes, there'd been a single scrap of unburned paper, with an actual, recognizable word upon this.

The word had been 'Weasley.'


	21. Chapter 21

Pausing in her crooning to the small bundle in her arms, Hermione glanced through the French windows of the second-story room, looking outside at where the latest round of silliness was taking place several hundred yards away in the rear courtyard. Turning away to cynically eye everyone sharing the palace bedroom with herself, the queen dryly noted, "People, you must know we're only going to keep her with us for a few years, and then she'll be joining the rest of those idiots out there."

Soft chuckles caused by that sarcastic remark came from all and sundry, both Muggle or magical, as Hermione now walked over to the canopied bed and leaned forward while carefully holding out her burden to the tired but proud young woman there, who eagerly regained possession of her newborn. Both mothers then looked down into a red, yawning face, as a beaming Hermione gave a quick kiss to the top of her daughter's head.

As the queen straightened up, she met with amusement the hopeful gazes of a quartet of great-grandparents in the chairs and sofas around the room, all four of them excitedly awaiting their turn to hold the latest generation. Even Arthur and Daniel had stopped discussing Muggle inventions together, while Emma and Molly were giving each other calculating looks, as if silently trying to decide about unifying with each other against their husbands in order to make sure they got their chance first with the absolute little darling presently in her mother's arms.

Casually shifting his weight in the chair, an action that most certainly did not edge himself a couple of inches closer to his granddaughter's bed, Daniel cleared his throat, and seeking to distract everyone before he made his restrained move that would put the least possible strain on his bad hip, Hermione's father then commented to his child, "Honey, I thought I'd heard just about every possible excuse from your husband to start a Quidditch match here, but was he really serious about checking on what he told us?"

Standing by the ornate bed, Hermione sighed in sheer exasperation over the loud giggling of her own child, as this witch lying in the bed joyously cuddled her daughter while laughing about her royal father's absurd justification to play his favorite sport. Giving the impish young woman a rather cool look that failed to halt her mirthful lese-majesty, Hermione reluctantly admitted to her male parent, "Dad, he did mean it, because believe it or not, that does keep happening to Ron. The only reasonable explanation that anyone's ever come up for it is that weird result's the very last residue of the Hogwarts spell."

Daniel Granger looked astonished, as the rest of the room save for a peeved Hermione then joined in with the new mother's amusement. "It's been twenty-five years, and that's _still_ going on?"

"You just wait," Hermione gloomily predicted. "When they all get back, it'll be the very first thing the whole crowd will tell us."

* * *

As expected, the whirling mob of witches and wizards flying on their brooms around the private Quidditch pitch had separated into their usual teams. Every person in the game proudly wore their playing robes bearing the team names that years ago had been unkindly bestowed at the same time upon each other by the opposing sides, and these labels were now considered an actual badge of honor by every player.

After all, there was virtually no other reason in the world why anyone would willingly wear something that proclaimed them to be a Daft Old Codger or an Ungrateful Little Bastard.

The DOCs mostly consisted of the older generation from the wizarding world, and their opponents, known as the ULBs, were usually the children of this age group, but it wasn't really necessary for anyone accepted by either team to meet this exact criterion. Basically, if you were family, you were in, on one side or the other.

This also meant, as was customary in family games worldwide, that the most flagrant cheating possible, in conjunction with the dirtiest tricks imaginable, were considered to be a truly essential part of the hard-fought Quidditch match that was currently taking place upon the royal grounds.

As he swooped through the air, Harry Potter roared with laughter at observing Teddy Lupin on his broom flailing away at the large cloud of purple bubbles that stubbornly clung to every inch of that young man's body. Nevertheless, seeing Fred and George Weasley giving each other satisfied smirks over their latest prank resulted in the green-eyed man pointing a stern finger at the two men on their brooms and shouting, "Penalty! You prats, fly upside down for the next two minutes, and perform the Hogwarts school song backwards while you're at it!"

Both of the twins immediately thumbed their noses at the referee, but they then good-naturedly obeyed his order, flipping over and starting to sing together in perfect unison. Absently ducking the Quaffle as it was viciously hit his way by a club-wielding Ginny Weasley, Harry blew this grinning woman a kiss and zoomed off in pursuit of the leather-covered ball, making sure that the game didn't degenerate into even more chaos than was normal. This man was probably the only person in the entire wizarding world who could have pulled off that impossible feat.

But then, he was Harry Potter. The greatest Seeker of his era, fifteen years a world-class player, bringing home the Quidditch World Cup for England eight times, including a record five times in a row. The only other competitor anywhere coming close to equaling Harry had been the Bulgarian Viktor Krum, and their teams' matches had turned into the stuff of legends. The only reason why 'Perfect' Potter (he once bitterly complained to his sniggering best mate, "Bloody hell, I thought that 'the Boy-Who-Lived' was the worse nickname ever, and then I had to be proved wrong!") retired as an active player was for something more interesting than personally competing in Quidditch.

This was personally _managing_ a Quidditch team. After years of trying, his godfather Sirius had finally acquired a controlling interest in a minor league team very down on its luck, and that older wizard had then enthusiastically offered the manager's position to Harry. The challenge of actually improving the fortunes of one of the worse teams in their league had appealed to the famed player. Plus, in the last couple of years, he'd grown somewhat tired of waking up the next morning after a strenuous game and feeling every possible ache and pain tormenting his weary body. Harry had promptly accepted, and during a building year, the man found he also had a definite talent for leadership, which resulted in his new team improving beyond recognition. The year after that, they'd won their league, and the team then moved up into the professionals.

The British wizarding world had basically gone into sheer delirium the next year, when Harry had skillfully directed his players into the ultimate victory, and then the entire magical society of this small European island had consequently developed a sense of absolute smugness over their team's continuing successes against the rest of the world. Considering that Harry showed no signs of slowing down, it was clear to everybody elatedly partying in Diagon Alley and elsewhere in Great Britain, as rivers of butterbeer flowed in celebration, that they could look to at least several more decades of this.

As for Harry himself, he now only flew in team practice Quidditch matches, showing his awed younger players how it was done, and in family games currently like the one he was now refereeing today. As he zoomed and dove and rose in the Royal Quidditch Pitch, with an expertise far beyond mere skill, the whooping man currently having the time of his life gleefully handed out imaginative penalties to everyone in range performing their most blatant fouls against each other. Performing an adroit reverse Immelmann, Harry followed the Quaffle lower down, where it was caught by Alcmene Longbottom, with this young woman then making a break for the nearest undefended hooped goal post, yelling triumphantly at her team's imminent victory.

This exultant howl abruptly turned into a shriek of absolute horror, as Sirius and Remus flying in tandem now came down in front of the teenage girl in a last-chance attempt to distract her by these older wizards performing the dreaded, supremely disgusting Double-Marauder-Moon formation, robes up and underwear lowered to flash these mature arses at everyone in the vicinity presently trying to control their stomachs. As for Alcmene herself, this shaken young lady immediately flung the Quaffle in the general direction of the hoop, to then clap the palm of her hand over her eyes in an effort to keep from her mind from becoming even more mentally scarred than it already was by the pair of atrocities being revealed on their brooms in front of this young woman.

Wincing, Harry gladly switched his attention away to where the hurled Quaffle was arcing through the air, at once seeing that it would miss the hoop. In the very next moment, a player from the opposing team dove to snatch this leather-covered ball in an easy recovery that would put the Quaffle in their possession. Everyone else in the Quidditch game - his own teammates, the other team, and Harry himself - now froze in mid-air and watched with bated breath, as His Royal Majesty King Ronald the First held up his hand, palm forward, and about to catch without the slightest difficulty the Quaffle lazily flying right at him.

In an infinitesimal flicker of magic that was the last remnant of the life-changing spell cast by Hogwarts Castle twenty-five years earlier, the Quaffle now smoothly curved around the grasping fingers of the monarch, to then plunge directly through the middle of the hoop, as if the Quidditch ball had eyes to see where it was going.

Over the next moments, the man with his red hair that was beginning to show streaks of grey from his worries and responsibilities hovered on his floating broom, now sheepishly hanging his head during the screams of joy from the rival team and the jeering from his own teammates, all due to the fact that he'd just won the game for the other side. On his own broom higher up, Harry Potter was laughing himself sick, as a certain insulting line from a jaunty song so long ago again ran through his mind.

Whether he liked it or not, Ron Weasley would _always_ let the Quaffle in.


End file.
